I am the huddle at the door
I am the sound of disbelief
I am the awkward in the car
I am the mystery touch of grief
I am the baby blanket never used
The empty pram that gathers dust
The empty cot with teddy bears
The silent tears in silent eyes
I am the toys without a toddler
The empty birthday with no cake
The empty name without a face
The whisper lost within the why
I am the sin that lies unsolved
I am the unsaid glance of blame
I am the hurting unresolved
I am the baby lost by shame
In 2013
Ali Cobby Eckermann won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and Book of the Year for her second verse novel,
Ruby Moonlight, a massacre story. At the time she was in Ireland, as an Australian Poetry Ambassador. In 2014 she attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her memoir,
Too Afraid To Cry, was published in New Delhi India in 2015, on her way to Jaipur Literature Festival.
Seemantini Gupta is a journalist with the Bangla language daily newspaper,
Ananda Bazaar Patrika. She is a freelance translator and translates mostly between Bangla and English. She has co-edited, with Mridula Nath Chakraborty, a collection of thrity-nince poems and one short story, with a critical edition, of Nunga poet Ali Cobby Eckermann, into Bangla, titled
Abohelar Bhangan Naame Booke / Broken by Neglect (Jadavpur University 2014).
