Fragrance
of orange peels
Winter settles against the windows
Orange peels lie scattered
on the kitchen countertop,
bright as remembered sunlight
Its fragrance touches the curtains,
bookshelves, sofa set,
and corners ants file past.
Outside, the day remains
cold and withdrawn;
indoors, the air changes.
A child looks up from homework.
Ma hums near the stove.
The fruit’s sharp sweetness conveys
orchards, distant afternoons,
picnic baskets,
and jars of orange compote
For a moment…
The house itself seems to breathe,
more warmly.
A distilled sun
wanders from room to room,
plucked from the sky above,
its warmth released
into winter walls
Magic happens unmagically.
Borderless
night roads
The highway stretches
beyond checkpoints
and sleeping towns
with headlights piercing the dark
Inside the bus,
names are folded
into passports, notebooks,
inside frayed backpacks
Some travellers speak
softly into phones
before the signal disappears;
Others lean against windows
carrying silence across borders.
A child sucks at her mother’s breast,
while unfamiliar milestones
rush past like forgotten promises.
No one knows exactly.
When leaving becomes becoming.
At roadside tea stalls,
strangers share warmth
without asking origins.
Behind them, homes fade
gradually into memory,
softened by distance and night rain.
Ahead waits another country,
another rented room,
another attempt at belonging.
Midnight
feeding
The house is almost entirely silent
except for the small breathing sounds
between mother and child.
Midnight wraps itself
around the chair
beside the window
moonlight bathes
the baby’s face,
sleeping in the crook of her arm.
Half-awake, mother watches
tiny fingers uncurl
and rest against her skin.
Outside, the world continues unseen:
distant traffic,
sleepless dogs,
and the slow drifting of clouds.
Inside, time stops
Tenderness eclipses exhaustion
This tenderness becomes
its own kind of strength.
No audience witnesses this hour
Yet the moment,
feels ancient and sacred
A quiet exchange
of hunger, warmth, comfort,
and of enduring love.
Thin Varicose Veins
She sits with her legs,
stretched on the bed,
massaging tired calves,
while the afternoon light
exposes thin varicose veins
blue and purple, thin lines,
fragile yet persistent,
tracing years of being
mother and wife.
For some time
She tried hiding them,
beneath long skirts,
embarrassed by what age
had crafted onto her legs.
Now she views them differently.
Each branching thread,
with a memory attached:
written in her memoirs
to re-read, and rewind
to the days when her bare legs
invited catcalls.
The marks are no longer flaws.
But quiet stories the body keeps
When words fail to speak.
Snigdha
Agrawal, a septuagenarian, was raised in a cosmopolitan environment, with
exposure to the Eastern and Western cultures, imbibing the best of both
worlds. Educated in Loreto Institutions
run by Irish Nuns, she developed a love for writing from childhood. She has an MBA in marketing and more than two
decades of experience working in the corporate sector, which has honed her
writing skills in both commercial and artistic parlance. A versatile writer,
she writes in all genres, including poetry, prose, short stories, and
travelogues. Her poetry, short stories,
essays, and travelogues are regularly featured in online journals published across
the globe.
A
published author of five books, the latest titled FRAGMENTS OF TIME, is
a book of memoirs, written in a simplistic style. The book is available on
Amazon. She lives in Bangalore (India).
Her lifelong passions of writing and travelling remain undimmed.
