The ladybug and the ink drop
We still used ink-pens then
A drop of coolness,
Formed a pool blackness
On paper
It was darkness spreading
across the page
Unstoppable
And weighed down the lady bug
She desperately waded through it
Tips of her wings
Singed by the blackness
Sticky, insistent on holding her down
The blackness smudged and spreading
Larger, but shallower too now
The bug's legs moved, frantic
The blot grew still,
She stopped, resting maybe,
hoping, dying
And then she fluttered her wings,
Half crawling
She was somewhat flying
Absorbing the blackness forever
And emerged, leaving a trail behind
An inky memoir
On paper forever
Where she had left some of her warmth
Once
Shriya Bhagwat's work has been published in the Coldnoon Literary Journal, 'Branch and Root - the
Anthology of the Trees' (Shooting Star Press, Australia) and the anthology 'Ko Aotearoa Tātou /We Are New Zealand'
(Otago University Press).
