I sit on an empty bench
In a city that has bared itself to me
Paint is peeling off
Recently spruced up community halls
The makeover is laughable
The road rollers are parked in a corner

I wrap my arms around this half-baked reparation
Intimacy with the city’s quirks
Gives me warmth
In ways
I keep seeking from relationships

Asphalt, gravel and soil
Will start churning around as the day starts…

Memories of an ancient road repair
The sounds disturbed a grandma
With feverish delirium
What could a grandpa do?
For roads had to be flattened and smoothened

There was the prettiest girl
I met every summer
Floral dresses
Dimples that dented her visage
For me to park kisses there

I strain to recall her name…
A first love
Fading somewhere
Into the night’s oblivion

Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, Indie Film Producer, cinephile and poet in New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites of repute like ‘Mad Swirl’, ‘Grey Sparrow Journal’, ‘The Piker Press’, ‘Dissident Voice’, ‘Borderless journal’, ‘Madras Courier’, ‘Outlook’ etc. She has featured in literary journals like ‘Fine Lines’ and anthologies like ‘Harbinger Asylum’, ‘Kali Project: ‘But You Don’t Look Sick’ etc. Her cinema articles appear regularly in ‘Just-cinema’ and Daily Eye. Her debut collection of poems ‘Mannequin Of Our Times’ was published in February 2023.The book has been awarded The Panorama International Book Award 2023.