Uprooted
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
Put one foot in front of the other
and get a move on
is the advice you want
to laugh at.
What do trees do to get on with life?
A congealment curdles &
stems the gear of
hip joint, femur, metatarsals
musculature, bone armature.
Do trees curse silently the lot meted out?
And yet—old fruit-bearers these—
roots and soil in quiet forever-dance.
Under my mother’s bed
discarded slippers and stray bits of hope—
Where are the life-giving roots?
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Tryst
(listen to the poem, read by Diane R. Wiener)
Doc declares the onset
the honeymoon phase as if
disease were a new lover—
the suffering a contract
that shall be upheld and
ploughed through—and in
moments when a leg falls
wayward or fingers can’t grasp
steadily you commend to its
uncanny spell that holds
at bay everything else and
thralls body and mind.
So ensnared you’re gutted
when another speaks of
their tryst with the same
exacting lover—the one
that has you all wrung out.
“Tryst” was first published in Cold Lake Anthology, edited by Janet McKeehan-Medina, Elaine Pentaleri, and Amy Place, and is reprinted with permission.
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About the Author
Sayantani Roy’s writing straddles both India and the U.S., and she calls both places home. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Seattle Times, Pen to Print, Cold Lake Anthology, Heavy Feather Review, and Gone Lawn. She dreams of teaching poetry to young children one day.