Alive by Mehga Mazumdar

Girl at the Piano (The Overture to Tannhauser), Paul Cézanne 

MEGHA MAZUMDAR (she/her/hers)

Megha is a student of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India, currently pursuing her post-graduation in English Literature. Apart from this, Megha is the Publications Head of the journal, The Renaissance, India. She has been published in various national and international journals, where she has contributed both as a creative writer (through poetry and articles) and as an academician. Megha has presented a handful of papers all over India, her recent ones being on South-Asian Canadian Diaspora, Eco-Feminism, and Women’s Criminology in Victorian England. She is also a winning contributor of an essay competition (June, 2021) on Indian Diaspora arranged by TMYS, India in collaboration with the University of Birmingham. She is still active with a couple of her publications, awaiting on Flood and Natural Calamities. Megha is a silver-medallist and a holder of the All-Rounder Award from AMITY University, Kolkata, for her excellent academic and extra-curricular capabilities, as portrayed during her under-graduation. 

Alive

Tuning in to some volatile Rhapsody

I made in the winter of ’59. On a 

Solitary piano, with a mind

As barren as the cocoon, after

The moth flies away. 

This mind shudders, alike,

The flame of a drowsy candle, white.

But barren, like the

Sahara on an eclipse night.

The Rhapsody measures

Stressed anonymity, mind,

My love, it’s tuned with a barren mind

But it measures the tyranny in my index,

The mini minutes of momentum 

In my thumb. 

A mind, barren. A body, alive.

It measures the escape of 

The mind, barren like your sweater,

Deprived of you.

The escape in the obtuse-ness of my thighs,

And the rigorous tightening of my belly,

The Rhapsody measures clenched breaths

In quarters. 

Secures resonating applauds,

Enough to crack through the mind, 

Barren like the 622nd street,

At 5 in the dawn,

With a silhouette, receding afar-

The arms hang loose, 

Of a clutch they have escaped.

Minds, barren. Bodies, alive.