By Rashi Choudhary
My father's steps quicken when we go out,
He never walks with us, I follow briskly,
My mother, she dawdles, what is the need, she drawls.
Perhaps she's accepted this too, like his other flaws.
He's ashamed I think but can't stomach the thought.
But he is, I know it when he looks back,
He stares at the granite that divides us
But his eyes do not fall on the feet that must traverse it,
He doesn't stop, I wonder what he's running from,
The woman he married? The daughter she bore?
Or the life we pillaged? His; without burgeoning duty.
These days- my brother sprints, I stroll, my mother ambles,
My father, as always, runs.
We are a family of four,
Just split apart by stone.