Medha Singh: Two Poems

Drown

For all that’s buried in the sea,

I doubt it was ever a scream.

Every April, I dream through nights—

Woolf emerging from the Ouse,

enrobed in kelp and weeds, a long

exhale as she turns her face

to sun.

People drown quietly & whisper

to the water without thought.

Ophelia floats in black milk—

Maggie Tulliver, Jack Stapleton, 

Henleigh Grandcourt

Eustacia Vye, black milk. Blue day. 

Woolf trailing. Orbs

of air and light, now elastic

as they surface

from the blue depth.

You can’t see the drowning

struggle, never. Lungs

incubating water, eyes

turned back, no scope

for word-sounds, no one 

to hear you. We unravel

from fibre, sinew, bone

submit to the maw, the clamour

of blues. A good colour to see

as you sip, and sip, till you—

Mandir / Altar

Grief and light around, burning almonds,

such eyes on ashen faces by the hospital

entrance. Wounded by dark fog, tall goddesses

in congress look upon them—Lakshmi,

Saraswati, Durga, Kali. Brass bells clang

through hot nights and tears—hopes pile up

at their porcelain feet towards answers

that aren’t there. A pall of incense crawls

through rooms brushing gently, against

smooth faces at the altar. We absorb soft

pauses amid the swish, the song

of hurried stretchers and weeping fathers:

regret, sacrifice, pain, nothing. Save for one

old man who fears, having slept outside

for years that his daughter’s ghost lives on

at the feet of Kali. Each morning, a prayer,

through curly curtains of incense air,

he perches a marigold there, his hands

folding shut, thumbs pressed to forehead,

first light, an incantation— 

]
Aum shanti, aum aum
]

]

before he touches                   any food.

Medha Singh is a poet, editor, and translator based in Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in The Robert Graves Review, 3:AM, Hotel, Firmament, and Interpret among others. She is the author of Ecdysis (2017, Mumbai) and a work of translation from the French, I Will Bring My Time: Love Letters by S.H. Raza (Vadehra Art, 2020). Singh has taken her master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Her work has been anthologised in Singing in the Dark (Penguin, 2020), The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction (Hachette, 2021), Contemporary Indian Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi, 2020), Best Indian Poetry 2018 (RLFPA editions), Divining Dante (Recent Work Press, 2021), Future Library: Contemporary Indian Writing (Red Hen Press, 2022), Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (Penguin Random House, 2022), and The Best Asian Poetry (Kitaab, 2022). Her work has been translated into Hindi, Spanish, and French. Her interviews have appeared on the websites of The Pablo Neruda Foundation, Chile; NERObooks, Boston; POV, Denmark; Queen Mob's Teahouse, London; and JCAM, Massachusetts. She was nominated for the TFA awards (India) in 2019 and 2020. She is the winner of the New Writers Award (Scottish Book Trust), 2023.