Nothing is Missing
Arranged beauty, a vanishing self. Silent guns in the corner reveal an…
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From Matchbox
Matchbox – February ’26
River of Missing Persons
The river swallowed father, memory, and country's hue, leaving only yellow mornings and sweet sorrow.
February 10, 2026
Early morning, my father went to the river
searching for shining stones in the water—
memories of my mother trapped beneath the folds of time.
The river glittered briefly and closed its palm.
He did not return.
Since then, morning arrives with a yellow face.
Tell me, my country—were you always this colour,
or is this how summer fades
when no one is left to remember?
The rebels rot in sugar mills,
their bodies learning the language of sweetness;
it is impossible to escape
the lingering smell of their prickly sorrows.
I see giant green clouds mating
like languishing sailors.
Everything slowly disappears—
islands, jellyfish, even my own shadows.
📖
PART OF A COLLECTIONOf Novels, Old and New & 3 Other Poems
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Ashwani Kumar
Ashwani Kumar is a poet, author and academic in Mumbai. Widely published, anthologised and translated into several Indian languages, his poetry volumes include ‘My Grandfather’s Imaginary Typewriter’, ‘Banaras and the Other’ and ‘Architecture of Alphabets’. Recently, he has published “Rivers Going Home” (Red River)- a major anthology of Indian poetry. He is author of the acclaimed non-fiction ‘Community Warriors” (Anthem Press), and one of the chief editors of ‘Global Civil Society’ at London School of Economics. He is also cofounder of Indian Novels Collective, an initiative to popularise translation of classic novels of Indian languages. In leisure, he writes a book column in the Financial Express.