Here, the dictionaries are tombs—
words folded like unsent letters.
A scholar coughs over the brittle spine
of a tongue that forgot how to sing.
The caretaker oils the hinges at dusk,
his hands fluent in silence.
Moths annotate the margins,
their wings whispering palimpsest.
Children run fingers over Brahmi’s bones,
tracing what the ink refused to hold.
A parrot in the courtyard repeats
the last curse, the last lullaby.
Rain taps the roof in Morse code,
asking if the dead can still be read.
The librarian shelves the question
between memory and monsoon.

Mr. Mohit Saini is a writer, poet, and researcher, working as an
Assistant Professor at Compucom Institute of Technology & Management,
Jaipur. With 8 years of experience in the field of language and
linguistics, he has contributed significantly to research and
education in these areas. His academic qualifications include a
Bachelor of Education, a Postgraduate degree in Business
Administration, and a Master’s in English from the University of
Rajasthan. His areas of expertise encompass literature, second
language acquisition, psycholinguistics, English grammar, multilingual
education, and the implementation of language policies in higher
education. He is also the author of several published poems,
showcasing his creative engagement with language alongside his
academic pursuits. He resides in the culturally rich city of Jaipur.