As the silver in my hair
turns pale with cold,
my legs hurt. It's difficult 
to walk. But my spirit soars 
to the sun, to the moon. 
I flit, I float among the stars. 
I waft on clouds across the 
seven seas and swing 
from the mast of a sail-ship. 
I jump from ship to ship, 
fly dangling from the claws 
of a huge bird in the sky 
till my toes scrape mountain-tips. 
And then, I plop on the sand 
by the sea and gaze and gaze 
at distant dreams. My legs 
are fine and the silver in my hair
has turned gold. I am smarter 
than Rapunzel for unbraided, 
I let my hair splay across 
the universe till it becomes 
part of the sunshine. 
I had always wanted locks 
as dark as night to become 
star spangled ebony. Diamanté. 
Maybe, that too will be and I, 
weaving sinuous realms 
across a magic lamp, 
ageless, timeless—forevermore. 

Mitali Chakravarty has two books of poems, Flight of Angsana Oriole (Hawakal Publishers, 2023) and Cities, Nomads and Rocks (Gibbon Moon, 2024).