Instructions for Reading a Living Page
Do not begin at the first line.
The page has already shifted slightly.
Notice the margin, darkened overnight—
as if it absorbed something unrecorded.
A thin green thread crosses a sentence.
It was not there when you arrived.
Read around it. Do not touch.
The words close ranks when handled directly.
If a word loosens, let it fall.
Something beneath it has been waiting longer.
Midway, you may hear a second rhythm.
It quiets the moment you listen for it.
A verb will change tense without warning.
The line will not acknowledge the difference.
If a leaf opens between two clauses,
the grammar will bend to contain it.
Do not correct this. Continue carefully.
By the end, the page will resemble itself—
but not the version you first believed.
Leave it open.
Something is still growing
where the sentence refused
to finish.
Inventory of Small Persistences
You leave the cup near the window again.
Light gathers there, then lingers too long.
The plant has grown without asking permission.
A new leaf leans toward something not visible.
You touch nothing, but something rearranges.
Dust lifts briefly, as if making space.
Books remember where your fingers paused.
One sentence warms, though the room is cool.
Outside, a crow repeats the same question.
The sound returns, even after it ends.
You begin to count what has not left—a chair, a shadow, a breath held somewhere.
The wall holds a faint outline of you.
It shifts slightly when you look away.
It is not comfort, exactly, that stays.
More like something choosing not to disappear.
Punyasloka Mohapatra’s work engages with memory, interiority, and the subtle disruptions within ordinary spaces. His poetry often explores silence, repetition, and the porous boundary between language and lived experience.