I Promise to be a Good Girl, God: Poems on Surviving Cancer

I Promise to be a Good Girl, God: Poems on Surviving Cancer by Kamini Banga; New Delhi: Penguin Books; Rs. 150; pp. 97

In any event, the poems, made to carry a disproportionate weight in their stripped lines, are both affecting:
My cell has white walls
Stripped bare
In the harsh neon light

The small window
Holds the promise of
Tomorrow, but I feel
The thick iron bars
On my throat and
A bit lower down,
To the right...

and affected:

Could I pickle my years
And preserve them for a lifetime?

I could then at will
Taste my bittersweet childhood
The wild and crazy adolescence
And all those adult years gone sour...

as they chart the progression of ten terribly mortal, terribly fearful years:

The lady on my right
Is planning her first
Meal back at home.
The nurse invites herself.
She will never make
That meal though.

Khademul Islam is literary editor, The Daily Star.