“Possibilities” and “In Consideration”
Poems by Purbasa Roy
The Simla Review
Published on August 30, 2026
Possibilities
______________
Sometimes sitting idle I think of what possibilities
my body holds. I mean as a child I wanted the wind
to carry me. My body denied. After years, I remember
it, as cruelty of my body. It seldom agrees with me
like the mood of clouds. I know the shadows my body
makes, it hides deers, chairs, monuments. So much
of this universe. And when I plead to give me a
heirloom, its face plays the face of a day-struck owl.
Glamorousness of it can be understood as it has
the smell of petrichor, unless otherwise adulterated.
In whose influence I dig the same curtains of
questions. And desire unveils its potential. How it
mercied, hide, a black lizard roaming wild through
the house walls. It's becoming of the adolescent picnic-
souvenir, I caught myself surrounded by a sudden ballad
of fear. And ran returning through a late-night bridge
hearing some alien footsteps approach me. The
silence swollen by the fire moths light at a distance
patterned like a constellation made of restive sunsets.
In Consideration
________________
In the courtyard sun shafts spill over. This moment
seems like a prayer kept in consideration. I stand
between this happening and think how devotion
creates a world similar to this inside our bodies. I
remember in childhood I was famous for searching
lost things. I easily slinked beneath beds, chairs and
found out fallen safety pins or coins. In dim light
they shone like God particles. What is to hold
something we assume is ubiquitous. I've made a
practice of staring at hidden corners. Dreaming
my forage for something shapeless might find
meaning. Once I saw a man write something on
a piece of paper and bury beneath a stone. I
desired to know what he wrote and left behind.
Heavy traffic tricked me the way towel tricks
water on our bodies. I returned disappointed.
What is the word that could've deciphered my
sadness, which mattered not to me. I was or
am or will be no god granting wishes. If my
story is kept in a gunny bag and rattled what
sounds shall emit. Something like reliance
surrounded by weak want beyond their
fading tendencies…