Poetry 2015 Shortlist, Sanhita Baruah

After Death

You're all words,
When it is your death.
For people by then
Would have forgotten
How to love you, again.
They would remember
You not, for your deeds
Were forgotten too soon.
You lived on the smell
Of ephemeral cigarettes,
On the taste of bitter beer
And the whiskey that burns
Your guts as it vanishes.

What is it that you'll leave behind?
Your beauty was forgotten
When you succumbed
To the wrinkles of aging.
Your smile is no longer charming
When you hide the gum
That misses a tooth.
So what is that you'll leave behind?
Probably, those words,
Never spoken,
Only written down,
On the bark of a tree
To be read by strangers
Who know nothing about your struggle.

And when the tree dies,
And the soil embraces your words,
Probably it is then
That your soul will rest
As your words will finally leave love
For the soil,
That you couldn't.