Baba

You sit on your favourite chair
Amongst rubbles of the past
In the wasteland of memory
Where nothing stays constant,
Unreliable narrators move around
Serving fact and fiction on the same plates.

I try my best to paint the place blue
Pouring all the sorrow after you
With no colour left in my palette,
As though the canvas breathes its last
You look through my heart, piercing it
With the sadness in your eyes.

Baba, who can tell it better than us
How it feels when breath becomes air.

Fahmida Sharmin is a contributor.