In the womb of the restless sea:
a place, deep dark- green moss and a slippery floor
with mottled plants, shining fish
other aquatic creatures with
exotic eyes/limbs.
There—lies buried the
treasure of memories made up of hulls broken and rusted iron
railings/anchors and chests, all
dreamed up by the mercenaries and hunters, in every greedy age.

Divers find pictures, logs, guns and other trivia there, attesting
to a fragment from the past that
wears a human face in those murky zones.

In the subterranean depths where the sun does not exist
but the moon can walk in and light up things
of mystery. There lives a pining mermaid
seen earlier by a Dane.

And later on, by other believing eyes, startled
by the hybrid form, some say, mythic.

Is love the property of humans only?
The other species might feel identical joy and pain.

That mermaid and the foamy underworld once
ruled by the Poseidon in a dim past, it
still exists someplace far-off but now
relegated to the margins of the collective
imagination of an age cynical.

Inky Interview Special: Mumbai-Based Academic & Author Dr. Sunil Sharma