Hit play below to hear Viplav Saini read his poem “When He Left The House Quietly” and scroll down for the full text. “When He Left The House Quietly” is featured in MQR’s Summer 2020 issue.
When He Left The House Quietly
maybe your father walked to the bus stand; maybe he rode buses all night, watching Delhi put out its fires, smoke a last cigarette, then exhale hard, and sigh to sleep around three. Maybe near five he had tea by the roadside —the buildings under construction asleep in the sky—then used the toilet at a temple nearby. We know that next, at an apartment complex in East Delhi, he asked the guard to be let in: “I just want to drink some water.” The man, unsure, made calculations of time and place, and caste and class— your father passed. He probably took the lift to the fourteenth floor and by the railing in the corridor must have considered the ground below. He must have seen the city begin to stir, if not entirely awaken —the smoke from the slum stoves, the car horns and crows clearing their throats, the air filling with hesitant sound... your father, still, considering the ground.
