Small Indian kite. Sunbird. by Ayesha Chatterjee One named for god, the other borrowed from the sun. Both female, perhaps. Myth and religion would recoil, yet here they are. She whinnies as we imagine god might do, a thin, cold cry. The sun slips like a leaf. She sings too. I'm not wanted here, the terrace shining in the dry March morning, a pair of stone eyes (not just govinda but also pariah) circling steadily above me until everything is as it should be.
Born and raised in Kolkata, India, Ayesha Chatterjee is the author of the poetry collections The Clarity of Distance and Bottles and Bones. Her work has appeared in Magma Poetry (UK), Exile Literary Quarterly (Canada), The Moth (Ireland) and elsewhere, and been translated into French, Slovene, Russian and Bengali. Several of her poems have been set to music by renowned Canadian composers. Chatterjee is a past president of the League of Canadian Poets. She lives in Toronto.
