Dinner
A lizard searches the kitchen trash can while
an empty bread-packet piles on mango peels piles on newspaper-covered sanitary napkins piles on blood-soaked toilet paper from yesterday.
It is 9 in the evening. No one can be bothered with emptying out the dustbin. And so the trash overflows joyfully on to the kitchen floor.
Meanwhile, the fruits are rotting. Last night I found 6 dead ants at the bottom of a ‘Himalayan Red Cherries’ box, their bodies swollen, frozen, curled inward – each abdomen its own fruit.
The mother’s blood pressure: 132/83 as opposed to this afternoon’s 141/100-something. I worry she will… I worry something will… I worry.
‘Don’t become like me,’ she says to the daughters, my sister and I, a wan smile across her face.
Don’t become like me, she says. She says don’t become like me.
But I already am.
But we already are.
***
Waiting for Poetry
poetry has left me. it packed bags while i wasn’t home and left without a note. i have been waiting since and i wonder how long i will wait. meanwhile, i search for poetry in the corners of my house. i look behind the balcony door, underneath the kitchen sink, behind the refrigerator, in the refrigerator. but poetry is not there. i lay in bed and wonder if i can find poetry in the silently whirring ceiling fan. in the shadows across my wall. in the sky’s changing color. but poetry is not there. i think of writing poetry a letter but i don’t know what to say. meanwhile, i blink at the shape of my hands and wonder where i went wrong. maybe poetry went out for a walk and forgot its way back home. maybe poetry is waiting by a bus stop, exhausted. maybe poetry is too shy to ask for directions. maybe poetry will knock on my door in the middle of the night, its feet dusty, its eyes bleary. maybe poetry will bathe for two long hours. maybe i will give poetry new, clean clothes, and it will lie down beside me. maybe poetry and i will fall asleep next to each other once again. maybe we will wake up the next morning and, over breakfast and tea, it will regale me with its adventures. i wonder where i went wrong. meanwhile, i keep everything ready. i keep the page blank, i ensure the ink is filled. ideas come and go but i tell them, i tell them please be seated, i am waiting for poetry. it will return, but it will be a while. i wonder where i went wrong. meanwhile, i keep myself clean. i bathe every day and wash my hair and comb them, like poetry taught me to. i wear clean clothes and i do my laundry twice a week, like poetry taught me to. i go for classes and i take extensive notes, like poetry taught me to. i come home and study and sleep, like poetry taught me to. i eat food and i drink water. i keep myself alive. i wait.
***
Somewhere, Summer
somewhere, summer. always.
the corridors dense with nothing-ness
for everyone is home,
seeking shelter under squeakily whirring fans
working overtime to assuage the relentless heat.
in class, a lull.
the students’ eyes heave with sleep
while the teacher struggles to gather a grip on adolescent attention spans:
each drooping face a cruel mirror,
the lull ripening swiftly.
somewhere, june. always.
clouds assemble unnoticed
as students let their eyes wander
in moments when, distracted,
they stare until the world is a mirage.
all afternoon long,
no one takes the sky seriously
even as it rumbles.
but stealthy drops of water fall upon a palm caught unawares
and suddenly everyone’s gaze is forced upward
to wonder at its source,
as though they don’t already know it,
as though a great mystery is to be uncovered
and will be uncovered any moment now.
any rumbles after this upward-looking are taken seriously,
everyone rushing indoors to
guffaw and glee at the sky’s caprice.
somewhere, longing. always.
driven indoors by their own assumptions
empty eyes now fixate upon the sheets of water impaling the earth.
those with bikes and those on foot
tsk and haw at the audacity of rain, and how.
those with cars display generosity and offer lifts,
while all the time wishing for nothing but home, warmth, a cup of tea.
those with nothing to lose rush
headfirst into the rain.
and those who wait, wait.
after an hour, the down-pour lets down to a drizzle;
hasty movements are made, belongings collected, umbrellas thrown open and raincoats donned.
on the walk back home, the earth smells like a memory yearning for remembrance,
like all that is forgotten rushing home.
