dVerse — Poetics — Our Stories

(There are) many stories which are not on paper,
they are written in the bodies and minds of women.
— Amrita Pritam

I hear her each morning
before she rounds the corner
heading to the well.

It is a shuffling, almost furtive,
where her worn sandals
scuffle hard-packed dust.

It would have been kinder to kill her,
but he is not a kind man.
Something about her scuffle
excites him. Reminds him of
the strength it took to take her —
to break her.

Yet there is something else
there in her sound that
rounds the corner each morning.

It is determination.
It is refusal.
It is victory.

Punam is today’s guest host for dVerse’ Poetics. Punam says:
For today’s poetics I am sharing five lines from various poems of Amrita Pritam. Use anyone of them as an epigraph, or as a springboard for your verse. Write in a form…