The Linnet's Wings Spring 2015 | Page 84

Spring 2015

They laughed their guts out. What a hoot!
The class bully was not half as bad
when she played the clown.
She wasn’t half as bad at cleaning
house either. Or chopping fish,
vegetables. Wearing hand-me-downs.
Going to the bus stop to drop
the older girl, the apple
of her parents’ eyes. After which she ran.
Always ran back as fast
as her short legs could carry her. But they
got her at the turn of the road. Most days.
And she kept it to herself. Sometimes slunk
into the school Chapel to pray. For what she
didn’t quite understand, but it occurred
to her that she needed something. And, forgiveness
was something. She was good
at Catechism, the Christian lessons she took,
because her Brahmin father wouldn’t pay
her school fees, feeding the nuns with sly
promises. And the nuns stretched
their hopes. They prayed for her when
they prayed for the redemption of souls. And she hoped
their prayers would lighten the debt
she could never repay. Ever.
© RK Biswas

The Linnet's Wings Poetry