Street dog.

Pritam, Amrita

It's something from years ago-- when you and I broke up no regrets, none at all --only something I can't understand.

While you and I said goodbye and our house was being sold the empty pots and pans from our kitchen lay in the garden-- maybe they were looking into our eyes, yours and mine some also lay upside down-- maybe they were hiding their faces.

There was a withered vine on the door maybe it was saying something to you and me --or complaining to the water-tap.

All this and other such things never come to mind, there's only one thing I remember a lot--

that a street dog somehow, following a scent got into one of the empty rooms and the door got locked on the outside.

Then on the third day-- when the deal on the house was done and we exchanged keys for cash we turned over every lock to the new owner and showed him each and every room and in one of them was the dog's corpse.

I never heard his bark with my own ears --I only knew his smell even now, suddenly-- that smell comes to me from many things.