Violence

On my birthday,
Bitan genially offers 
Rushdie's Knife. 
He indites: 
Not all daggers kill.

We were scared; 
stabbing of the author
made to newsflashes 
and debates. Probing 
unveiled a layered context. 

Do all casualties stir the air? 
At home or work, sufferers 
seldom show signs of injury 
when cutters flaunt the edges 
of sucrose crystals.

Note: A sugar-coated knife (following the Bengali idiom, 'Micchrir Chhuri') hints at a sweet taste while actually lacerating someone's soul.

Kiriti Sengupta, the 2018 Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize recipient, has poems published in The Common, The Florida Review Online, Headway Quarterly, and elsewhere.He has authored 14 books of poetry and prose, two books of translation, and edited nine anthologies. Sengupta is the chief editor of Ethos Literary Journal.