At the day’s end
the woman
has nothing in her hands.
Everything on it
has been quietened to satisfaction,
to rise tomorrow in mutiny again.
She doesn’t know
how many times this day
she has put her feet and fingers to use.
She forgets
how many laws she has upheld or
how many goodbyes she has said.
She is aware only
of having walked all day
and of not having covered an inch.
Ask her weary body or uncombed mind
what arrival means
and her eyes will startle you out of answers.
In her potholed being,
aches resolutely linger in pockets
like rainwater.
Come, find her at twilight
rinsing her day
of whatever it has drunk.
Basudhara Roy teaches English at Karim City College affiliated with Kolhan University, Chaibasa. She is the author of three collections of poems, the latest being Inhabiting (2022). Her recent work can be read in Economic and Political Weekly, Pine Cone Review, EKL Review, The Woman Inc., LiveWire, Madras Courier, Berfrois, Lucy Writer’s Platform and Yearbook of Indian English Poetry 2021, among others. Shortlisted for the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize 2022, Basudhara loves, rebels, writes and reviews from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India.