Domesticated

Where memories

do not keep, where

tunes are confused,

how do you serenade

your beloved?

How do you sing

open skies and

soaring wings,

when all you see

are walls?

The walls grow

in your cells,

till blinkered,

you trot on

the straight and narrow.

The tonga driver raises

his whip and lashes.

The horse neighs

in pain

but still obeys.

Mitali Chakravarty has three books of poems: Flight of the Angsana Oriole (Hawakal, India, 2023) and Cities, Nomads and Rocks (Gibbon Moon, UK, 2024) and From Calcutta to Kolkata: A City of Dreams (Hawakal, India, 2025). She has edited two anthologies, Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from Across the World (Om Books, India, 2022) and Our Stories, Our Struggles: Violence and The Lives of Women (Speaking Tiger Books, India, 2024).