We Both Know How to Find Peace or Make It Enduring

Free Verse Poem by Jasleen Saini

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To the bottled reptiles in the school’s laboratory and
Broken piano in his mansion’s basement
He talks
Hoping these will applaud him
For his witty mouth
Or at least acknowledge his existence
But gets silence
Frustrating like his mother’s loud snores. 

Every evening he talks to the pond
Opposite his mansion
And it talks back in his vernacular.
The pond is a substance of concrete reliance,
Unlike powerful stone gods in shrines
Pretending to be powerless.
That’s his peace, his secret
Which he once opened before his parents
Consumed by the horror film
In the comforting safety of the living room
As if it’s their first lovemaking.