Poetry 2012, First Prize, Rinzu Rajan

Delhi's Poem


Your streets enamelled ebon
go red and green
when life begins,
a merry-go-round
of moored matins greying
in the gloating gloom,
they vandalised your belly
raising brick buildings
on your brown skin,

stealing your vermilion to paint
the lips of a keep,
fireballs were fanned
in your alleys
when frost blinded the
eyes of a masquerade

letters have since
then been smothered
in signatures and
stuffed into sacks.

Today after ten years
my skirt has grown longer
when my bruises
healed with the hooch of heresy
I've seen your fight with time
and thank myself for
having read from your books.