This poem was published on the Indian Review in May, 2024.

 

A broken violin with splintered strings –

parts of a forgotten, fractured symphony

playing to an audience of the undead.

 

A defunct clock on a blistered wall

whose hands have long stopped ticking –

a grim metaphor for the relentless, sweeping scythe.

 

A moth-balled album with dog-eared pages

sneering at the smiles we once shared –

now, a mere addendum on sepia parchments.

 

A faded, blue decoupage vase

overgrown with weeds of woe and weal

languishing amidst a musty, floral potpourri.

 

Motley items gasping for breath in an antique chiffonier –

a sepulchre for the fragments of life…a cache of memories,

lost…stolen…wasted…blown away like grains of sand,

casting an umber hue on my autumnal heart.

 

Forever waiting to be bunched up and gift wrapped

in gossamer sheets of déjà vu and illusion,

and snail-mailed to my humble haunt

among the floating tendrils of cirrus clouds.

 

P.C. Anna Zakharova on Unsplash