I should be feeling better, but I am not. Shall it always be this way, a stone on my chest, this sense of a muted scream lodged in my throat, this sadness that has lasted forever!!

And the lamps are lit

Aur charag raushan hain.

Travails of the new teacher:

Me: "Let's start with the Elizabethan Age. Can anyone tell me who it's named after?"
Class: Profound silence
Me: "OK. The answer is Elizabeth I."
Someone from the back of the class, obviously relieved : Oooh, I know! Diana's saas. Chudail!!!
Me: speechless.

Returning to this seems really really strange. I am not sure I should.

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

—turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.

The Sound

Marc says the suffering that we don't see
still makes a sort of sound — a subtle, soft
noise, nothing like the cries of screams that we
might think of — more the slight scrape of a hat doffed
by a quiet man, ignored as he stands back
to let a lovely woman pass, her dress
just brushing his coat. Or else it's like a crack
in an old foundation, slowly widening, the stress
and slippage going on unnoticed by
the family upstairs, the daughter leaving
for a date, her mother's resigned sigh
when she sees her. It's like the heaving
of a stone into a lake, before it drops.
It's shy, it's barely there. It never stops.

© Kim Addonizio

Coming in on a wing and a prayer

Am I really? The one existing wing is in pretty darn bad shape, sergeant. The prayer will have to make it alone, and is threadbare as it is.

What a wonderful world.