Stories
by Sanket Mhatre
A story could be divided into two
like a piece of layered earth
right down to its crust
revealing the core - like an innocent mango, ripening
or a newborn’s skin as delicate as those unwritten first drafts
each sentence was written twice
first in the seed of its own silence
second in the sky of its meaning that multiplied as it echoed
a story wasn’t a story
but a million butterflies camouflaged as words
each with a trail of its own into a deep forest that doesn’t promise a return
the last line wasn’t written as its last
but as the first wave that ripples on the sands of a new territory
a full stop wasn’t a dot at the end
but a drop that illuminated the void after the last word and first breath
stories were written by silkworms
at the cusp of their metamorphosis
and books were cultivated as an ode to sericulture
stories entombed a civilization of endings
thread-shaped, stretching eternity by a mile
until she read them
to live one more day
a few pages at a time
Sanket Mhatre has been featured at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival and Glass House Poetry Festival. His first book of cross-translated poems, The Coordinates Of Us, won the prestigious Raza Foundation Grant after been shortlisted at IWrite2020 at Jaipur Literature Festival. Sanket’s poems have appeared in multiple anthologies, such as Shape Of A Poem, The Well Earned, Home Anthology by Brown Critique, Poetry Conclave Yearbook, as well as literary magazines such as Punch, Borderless, Muse India, Madras Courier, The Usawa Literary Review, Men Matters Online, Anthology by Querencia Press, and many others.
