Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 9, Number 1. May 2026. ISSN: 2581-7094
Talk about the Raikos
--- Beni Sumer Yanthan
7 p.m., and the light in the verandah bends slightly,
sulphuric gold, the colour of caustic lull, drift like
short-circuited fire through the edges of the door.
The air is inflamed, to the eye of the 7 year old,
About to be hollowed out of her hiding spot.
It has no voice, so it wears the tongue of the cicada
To announce the hunt is here.
We call it the Raikos –
A creature that worms out of the peat and ruck of
deviance and mayhem,
stinky teeth and upturned ears.
It is animal enough to smell the crutches of fear,
And human enough to strip the dark of its various
tempers,
Especially when the hook of hunger touched
It’s grand old mouth.
Tai held us together among the mangled remains of the
hour,
“Don’t go out playing in the dark, Raikos pra khai
diwo!”
“Pee before you sleep, otherwise, Raikos pra khai
diwo!”
It was one of the crazies of God, she said, marking
time,
sorting the ferns from atsu’s fields,
That appeared and fed on way-ward children, and often
grew
As tall as heaven, and
Wide as white.
Sometimes it even mimicked our friends’ voices,
And tricked us to come to their calls.
We couldn’t even take its name, or after it, only Tai
did.
And now, the light from the verandah filters through
the cracks
Into the room. Skin and bone and heart for air.
Crucifix on
shoulder-blades.
This, where my 7-year-old fingers the fifty rupees in
her pocket.
She weeps, “apvu, I’m sorry, I will never steal
again, ever!”
The rain creeps in, and the walls turn a bulbous red
bringing with it the smell of singed teak and acidic
poppies.
I tell her Tai’s secret: if you want to conquer the
Raikos,
do not keep your eyes upon it for long.
Look once, then bow your gaze to the earth.
For it grows in enormity only as much as you will it,
and turns smaller and smaller
each time your eyes learn to fall.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bio:
Beni Sumer Yanthan is a poet
and writer belonging to the Lotha tribe of Nagaland. Her poems, short stories,
reviews and essays have been published in various anthologies, journals and
e-zines. She is the recipient of the 2025 Australia-India First
Nations/ Adivasi Fellowship and Cultural Exchange between Sangam House and Varuna
(Australia’s National House of Letters).
****************