Open outcry almost sonnet
for K
Rishi Dastidar
In your scrapbook of transcendence
are there more than introductory kisses
to your handfast love, the one who flutters
back and back and back, reborn in their
absence not as salvation but rather
your forever anchor?
Â
If only you could tell your fear in open
outcry – no, I am ready now, I will run
to you. Don’t fly away again. This problem
is heaven. If a milksop can find courage
as well as desire. I wish they would text
me: in the company of the willing we
can weave magic.
A poem from Rishi Dastidar’s debut Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2018. A second book, Saffron Jack,was published in 2020, and he is editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century. His third collection, Neptune’s Projects, was published by Nine Arches Press in April 2023. He is also co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (Corsair). @betarish