INTERSTITIAL

by RK Biswas

It is everywhere. Between every rain lance.

Atoms of air. Nothing is spared. 

Something is wasted between

the tasting and the tasted. 

The hearing and the heard. 

The uttered and the unuttered word.

The deed. And what is about to be, 

And what you have seen or will soon see. 

There is space even when you cannot tell 

for sure. It is waiting, always waiting for the bell

to ring in its own blessed time. For it to claim, 

and total up the wins and losses of the game. 

You mustn’t fool yourself, even when

on the surface everything looks the same, 

because it isn’t. Everything is changed. 

Turned around. Gone. Dead and finished.

Except for them – the besides 

and the in-betweens. They survive. 

They come alive 

in their especially designated spaces.

* * * * *

RK Biswas is a writer from India. Her novel "Culling Mynahs and Crows" was published by Lifi Publications, India. Her poetry and fiction have been published widely. She was first runner up in the 2016 DNA-OOP Short Fiction Contest, India. She won second prize in the India Currents Katha Literary Fiction Prize for her story ‘It Comes from Uranus” in June 2016. Her novel was listed as one of the 20 most popular books published in 2014 by The Readers’Club, Delhi. In 2012 she won first prize in the Anam Cara Writer's Retreat Short Story Contest. Her poem "Bones" was a Pushcart Nominee from Cha: An Asian Literary Journal in 2010. Her poem "Cleavage" was long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize in 2006 and also was a finalist in the Aesthetica Contest in 2010. Her story Ahalya's Valhalla was among Story South's Notable stories of the net in 2007.