Shilpa Dikshit Thapliyal is a bilingual poet and author based in Singapore. She is a Pushcart nominee (Shot Glass Journal) and recently released her second poetry collection 'Between Sips of Masala Chai' (Kitaab International, 2019). Her poems have been featured in 'QLRS' , 'Shot Glass Journal', 'Taj Mahal Review', 'Unmasked- Reflections on Virus Times' amongst other anthologies and journals. Some of her poems written in Hindi have been translated into Spanish. She has read poetry in Malaysia and at the 'Kala Ghoda Arts Festival', Mumbai.

Shilpa Dikshit Thapliyal

---

 

An Apology

You come to me, translucent,
in a swarm of stories, urging a plug
to your leaking arteries, backflips
into static years, for a rendering
on my page, a cradle for your silence.
The crack that deepens every second
has fissured into a mottled wound,
and I am drawn to your bleeding
heart, a long forgotten entity restless
under starry skies. How do I inhale
your worries, your taut, abandoned
evenings? How do I sew your despair,
your fractured spirit, unyielding in courtesy?
Too many wrong trajectories.
I mumble an apology, fold the chambers
of your heart, slow burn it into nothingness.