Unseasonal

1.Diagnosis

The monsoons retreat, and my home is flooded
with visitors come with fruits and scripted conversations;
there is nothing wrong with my father, they say.


2.Treatment

A lackadaisical winter sun bears witness
to electron beams scorching cancerous cells,
and anything else in their path.


3.Uncertainty

I walk in sync with birdsong, side stepping a dead leaf.
Once upon a summer, I’d have quarreled with my sister
to crunch it, but now, my father is a dry leaf:
trembling, golden-brown, clinging, waiting.


4.Death

I know not when spring breezed in,
but there are plenty of flowers to choose from
to adorn the frozen memory that is his photograph.