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St Petersburg | ||||||||||
Ghosts
Cover
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Nirupama Rao
The light here is special. Drenched by blood and frost So much has happened here. Bronze horseman, burning homes, Nine hundred days written into symphonies of emptied tear ducts. "The iron lacework of fences," words of the favoured poet, I came here to see more than just the railings. My eyes emptied you Of every detail, draining the swamp, imagining the father finishing son, Here in this quiet summer house; a death that was not foretold. In the cold, congealing winter, the line forms of people like ants Hands outstretched for ice cream, defiant, no defeat this Even as soldiers, and mothers, and lovers Saw death’s mission done. The canal waters are smooth, and the oligarchs make Patterns with their sleek car on Nevsky Prospekt, And at the Marinsky, candied ceilings, music pitting the walls, I think of how it must have been To beg for black bread on the banks of the slow, straining river.
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Nirupama
Rao is former spokesperson of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.
She lives in Delhi
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