Unseasonal

( The first three were written last April)

Unseasonal: 

1.Diagnosis

The monsoons retreat, and my home is flooded

with visitors come with fruits and scripted conversations:

There is nothing wrong with my father, they say.

2.Treatment

A lackadaisical winter sun bears witness

to electron beams scorching cancerous cells,

and anything else in their path.

3.Uncertainty

I walk in sync with birdsong, side stepping a dead leaf.

Once upon a summer, I’d have quarrelled with my sister

to crunch it, but now, my own father is a dry leaf, singed

by cancer.

4.Death

I know not when spring breezed in,

but there are plenty of flowers to choose from

to adorn the frozen memory that is his photograph.