Anjana Deshpande

BIO

Anjana Deshpande is a psychotherapist and an occasional poet. In both roles she uses the power of writing for healing, recovery and growth. A trained poetry and journal therapist, she uses writing as a way to manage distress and empower clients to self soothe. As a poet, she uses writing to connect to her roots, and to remember. Originally from India, she has been in the US for about 15 years.

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Remembering

My eye stilled over that shape:
a deviation
from the norm.
No
graceful handles, a squat neck,
a stub for an arm.
This one was all womb.
Plain earth wrapped around water.

How many trips had I taken with that?
Hanging just out of reach, gently
swaying with train-rhythm.

It had lost the battle to brash bottles
that turned water tepid in
the heat,
unlike the cool, fresh sweet water in the…

I stilled, trying to remember,
But the name dried on my lips.

Ashamed, my eyes turned to the label-

All it said was:
Earthen Pot, made in India
Nothing more.

I drowned in disbelief,
panicked
what more had I lost?

Then a gushing torrent of memories,
of picnics, of hot, hot
Indian summers,
of days as unassuming
as the

Su-Ra- Hi

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Moving Houses

We have moved another house.

They are so similar
that I no longer have to think
what goes where.
The clock goes above the TV,
the TV near the cable point.

The carpets are brown, the walls white
and we live neatly, carefully,worrying about stains
and Indian food odors.

At home, another home waits
with dust on paintings
and furniture shrouded
in once white wraps

And we have two houses
where we do not live at all.

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Pakistani Neighbor

The tree is heavy with dew,
drips and drips
What tree is this?
I don’t know.
A foreign tree,
a foreign sky.

I sit at my window,
stare at my neighbor.

At home, it is spring,
our countries
are at war.
Here, we wave across
an empty parking lot.

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Time Flies

Time flies.
Time flies. 

I am a glass ornament.
Shake me, snow falls.
Wind me up.
I sing a worn out tune.

All of this time.
the world flies.

At my window,
I listen
to the hum
of the calendar’s pages
lifting themselves,
one by one,
disappearing
into my kitchen wall.

*****