CHOICES by Bibhu Padhi

When it comes to choosing

from more than one pain,

tears emerge from secret places;

belief in oneself is eroded

by the smallest differences.

They all seem to come from

the same place, carrying similar

lonelinesses. The mind and heart

suffer attacks of an elaborate grief

that is beyond all choosing,

all available rules of choice

and exclusion. The tears

come forth again, against

your wish, even as you feel

weak and alone, while the world

moves on its old road

of forgetting all that is close

to you, including those

much-diffused tears of a while ago.

Alien eyes suspect the story behind

your residual tears, even as you

turn away, remember —

more than ever before — your

own stories of loss, how

you were excluded in story

after story by someone else’s

grief over choices

and the consequent pain of loss.

Bibhu Padhi, a Pushcart nominee, has published fourteen books of poetry. His poems have appeared in distinguished magazines throughout the English-speaking world, such as The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The American Scholar, Commonwealth, Poetry, Southwest Review, TriQuarterly, The Antigonish Review, and Queen’s Quarterly. They have been included in numerous anthologies and textbooks. He lives with his family in Bhubaneswar, India.