Reversal
The dream where I turn into your mother
is unlike any other dream. No one knows who
reversed the order of our universe, but carrying
your milky giggle in my arms, nothing else matters.
I memorise the tinselled glint of your eyes until
something vaster than our shared alphabet swells up in me.
You remind me that love preceded language. That all this
urgency of caring sometimes makes us expand, expounds
the soft miracle of living.I lift you to my chest,
gently throw your dough upwards for just a second.
Mid-air, you are just as precious as the promise of you.
I remember. I was once thrown off-balance and you
gently socked my fall.
*
On the phone when I tell you of
this dream, you laugh at its absurdity
and switch to the weather. But I know
soon after we disconnect, you’d turn the guest
room’s lights on, trace your tired fingers on
the bed-seams. All these years that split
your tendons open, torpedo and leave you
a wrecked battleship. All I wanted is to fill
some of your forlorn into myself. But all that
I say at the end of the call, is take care.
sleep well. Dream that you are just a child thrown upwards,
rising like mercy through the liquid air—
Debmalya Bandyopadhyay is a writer and mathematician based in Birmingham, UK. He has been nominated for Best of the Net and was a finalist for SweetLit’s 2024 Poetry Prize. He can often be found in parks confabulating with local birds.