No More Parks

No more parks.
No more feeling the evening breeze
releasing a strand of hair
from the limited elasticity
of the hairband.
No more looking at the silhouette
of birds
even if night is still
a toddler waddling from far.
No more looking past the first row
of rose bushes
into the faces of nameless flowers
springing up from weeds.

There is always
one more sticky vessel in the sink,
its contents swirling
in tap water,
one more cobweb in the front porch
that I had not seen yet
and perhaps an old sock trapped
in the rubber seal
of the washing machine.

The way I learned to spell woman
was by adding two more letters
to “man”.
Now I should learn
the rules
of subtraction.

So yes, no more parks.

***

Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at editor@madrascourier.com.

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