“The Ophelias” by Adreyo Sen

“The Ophelias” by Adreyo Sen

 

Behind the Kolkata airport glass,

on a crowded evening,

white women skinny and vague,

in butterfly-pallid sarees,

have impossibly thin arms,

vague-looking luggage

and Moleskine diaries.

 

Such white women are Ophelias.

Their stringy, washed-out hair

is suddenly beautiful as it helps me

imagine

their eternal innocence,

their learned, infantile

regression.

 

One has her cute little nose

pressed against the dirty window,

alarming then entertaining a

grown-up little girl

with a stuck-up mien.

 

The other woman forgets her

forever-falling pallu as she begins

an extraordinary series of

squats, her hand glued to her

keen, but lost

eyes.

 

On this crowded evening,

as is evident to me in my

sudden fascination,

these two madwomen

are looking for someone.

Perhaps it is death.

Perhaps it is a grey-haired Peter Pan,

wrinkled and tiny,

waiting to fly them away

on his Scooty.

 

For the rest of Sen’s poems, check out FIVE Poetry Magazine Vol. 1, No. 1.