The girls are laughing,
fingers clutching their bags
brimming with gooseberries—
round and flushed, like their triumphant faces.
I watch the few
rolling about the empty bottom
of my bag.
I wipe my forehead, sweat
stings my bruised skin.
My gooseberries stare at me
like pairs of mocking eyes.
The ones too high up—
they could have been here,
and the ones I dropped
and squashed
in my haste.
The girls are laughing.
Their stares make my cheeks burn.
I turn to look at
the way I had come.
Thorny bushes skirting
a coarse carpet
of stray stones,
and some gooseberry trees.
It was a long way.
Asbah Sahar Imteyaz is a writer of fiction and poetry from Bangalore. Her works have appeared in The Bookends Review, Academy of The Heart and Mind Journal and elsewhere. She is deeply interested in medieval and modern Indian history and is currently working on a historical novel.