2 Poems
Trivarna Hariharan
Trivarna Hariharan is a poet and pianist from India. She has studied English Literature at Delhi University and at the University of Cambridge (ICE). A Pushcart Prize and Orison Anthology nominee, her poems are published or forthcoming in Duende, Entropy, Stirring, COUNTERCLOCK, Atticus Review, JMWW, The Hunger, Whale Road Review, The Shore, Chiron Review, and others. She has authored two collections of poetry: Letters I Never Sent (Writers Workshop Kolkata, 2017) and There Was Once A River Here (Les Editions du Zaporogue, 2018). You can find her on Twitter at @TrivarnaH, and on Instagram at @trivarnahariharan_poetry.
ELEGY FOR A ROADSIDE LEAF
Imagine the face of a brown-tarred
autumn leaf: stalled at the spine
of a traffic signal: waiting
for its bead-round eyes to twirl
from yellow to green—
imagine this leaf squirming—
crying for some earth-worm
to un-vein it:
so that it’s able to shed
the amber curls of its amrit,
even in death.
NOTE
Amrit is a Hindi word that translates to elixir/nectar, usually golden in colour.
HOW I WISH YOU’D RETURN TO ME
for M
Stars swirling in the un-burnished
stone-black of the night.
It’s embers leaden as barks
shooting out of a dead tree’s trunk.
How many times
have I longed to hold you again—
to become the night
for even a moment.
To kiss your pebble-soft ear.
Pink as a fish’s flesh
caught between a shark’s
maw.
