SEVENTH BIRTHDAY

The cake was an ice-pink

arctic teddy bear.

Seven colorful slender candles

shone like northern lights.

I, in a powder-pink frock,

became the moon fairy.

Every year,

the ice melts

Like frozen milk

in an old pail

under the sun

growing hotter.

Nowadays, I am unable to

bake a cake in my dreams--

always sour,

beginning to curdle.

NAMES

Why should I think of yesterdays?

Yesterday my name was Mahtab.

Yet, I dreamt my name was

Criseyde the Wronged One

and woke up with

rage streaming down 

my face.

I could light a joint

and set the years

up in a blaze

and watch them crumble

like paper to black powder…

Today you call me a Poet.

Imagine a woman, daily burn

her elegies with coal on 

an earthen stove.

Her lyrics, sharp as diamonds,

emerge dazzling on each page.

© Jagari Mukherjee

Bio: Jagari is a poet from Kolkata, India, who been featured on Eskimo Pie in July 2018. Her chapbook, Between Pages (Cherry House Press, 2019) and her full-length collection, The Elegant Nobody (Hawakal Publishers, Kolkata) are available on Amazon.com.