To Prateeti, my wonderful language teacher
The whole universe begins
to sink deep into the largeness of
your eyes…Emerald—
have I ever—before you—noticed
that hue slithering down the charcoal
of your rope braid? In real life,
clip jaws devour your long hairs;
in dream—if our
WhatsApp chats are dream-born—you
put a DP: without those famished jaws,
without your glasses, or
without a tint of the gouache
we use in our painting classes.
I don my carnelian tee
and break out
of my conch shell
To read this and more work by Baishampayan Seal order a copy of the drr issue of Ritual here.
Seal’s work work has previously appeared in _Aphelion Webzine_, and is forthcoming in _Altered Reality_ and _Scifaikuest_. He is from Kolkata, India, where he is currently pursuing an MSc in Statistics.