May 2017
then, one rainy day, when the sternbacked circusmaster noticed that the clowns had eloped to the hills on his pristine Persian rug, he, livid, wrung apart his leather whip, and burst into a flight of swallows, that dissolved in the rain since then, every year, when autumn razes the colour from the mango leaves, and drains the hibiscus near the shore, the clouds, scudding like water over the red hills, the glades, the clearings seared in the forest, bring in wisps of a clown’s laughter, holding its breath, held deep under love
About the author Tushar Jain is an Indian poet, playwright, and author. He was the winner of the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize, 2012 and a winner of the Poetry with Prakriti Prize, 2013. Subsequently, he won the RL Poetry Award, 2014. He was a winner of the DWL Short Story Contest 2014 for his short story A Humiliating Day for [Dr.] Balachander. He won the Toto Funds the Arts Award for Creative Writing, 2016. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Antiserious, The Nervous Breakdown, Read Leaf Poetry, Papercuts Magazine, Streetcake Magazine, The Sierra Nevada Review, The Young Ravens Literary Review and elsewhere. 34