From Lockdown Garden

By ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA

Left untrained,
the bitter melon’s taken over
the mulberry, dusting it

with small yellow flowers. 
The females will shrivel,
then elongate with the goodness

of bitterness. The males
will drop by the wayside
no sooner than they’re touched.

Had they wings, 
they’d have turned 
into butterflies and joined 

the fantail-flycatcher
making figures of eight
at the other end of the garden. 

*

It’s quiet on Sunday afternoons,
a time to watch pigeons walk across
the street as though they were crossing 

the sky. The mango trees bordering the lawn
were planted the year psephology 
came to India, but the golden rain sapling 

planted last month is catching up,
putting out new leaves
the colour of buried copper. 

*

Crushed by the cluster fig’s lopped branch,
the hophead Philippine violet didn’t recover.
But in an unvisited corner of the garden where the marijuana’s
invasive and dead wood rots, a new one’s come up.
It’s still young with flexible spikes,
and already looks to escape
from hazardous garden to safe bushland.

*

Its guavas inedible
and the trunk a broken stick
on which it leans, it holds fast
to its one branch 
as I do to my father
who planted the sapling,
his photograph fading on the wall 
along with the Fifties hairstyle.

*

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s books include Songs of Kabir, Selected Poems and Translations, and Collected Poems. Ghalib, A Diary: Delhi 1857–58, a chapbook, is to be published by New Walk Editions in spring 2022. He lives in Dehradun, India.

[Purchase Issue 23 here.]

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

From Lockdown Garden

Related Posts

A photograph of leaves and berries

Ode to Mitski 

WILLIAM FARGASON
while driving today     to pick up groceries / I drive over     the bridge where it would be  / so easy to drive     right off     the water  / a blanket to lay over     my head     its fevers  / I do want to live     most days     but today / I don’t     I could     let go of the wheel  

The Month When I Watch Joker Every Day

ERICA DAWSON
This is a fundamental memory. / The signs pointing to doing something right / and failing. Educated and I lost / my job. Bipolar and I cannot lose / my mind. The first responder says I’m safe. / Joaquin Phoenix is in the hospital. / I’m in my bedroom where I’ve tacked a sheet...

Image of glasses atop a black hat

Kaymoor, West Virginia

G. C. WALDREP
According to rule. The terrible safeguard / of the text when placed against the granite / ledge into which our industry inscribed / itself. We were prying choice from the jaws / of poverty, from the laws of poverty. / But what came out was exile.