Toast

“No, not today!” Maya popped the switch of the smoking toaster out of its socket. She knew something was wrong when the toaster had spewed blackened bread all of last week. She sagged onto the floor, sobbing.

He’d gifted the toaster on their first anniversary. Last night, her husband of fifteen years had moved out.

Good Meat

‘You insulate me,’ Ramanathan said, lying underneath, warm and taut like baked bread.

I melted like mozzarella on a pizza. Oh, the pleasures of biting into hot crisp dough overwhelmed with steaming salty goo.

We were huddled four thousand feet above sea-level inside a tent during a hailstorm. Food rations had ran out three days ago. It was the perfect time to line the sleeping bag with our bodies.

‘Remember, we roll the dice in the morning,’ I said, recapping our covenant, ‘though I’d much rather have you alive than dead.’

I sighed.

‘Hey!’ He was offended, ‘I am good meat.’

*

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Its Complicated

Its like a triple sundae: that ceramic boat

heaped choc-a-bloc full
with all the things that taste
divine and shoot the sugar levels up,
and pack on the pounds.

Three gruff luscious scoops of chocolate,
vanilla and strawberry that tingle
the tongue, chatter the teeth with cold in
summer heat, that push the hot air back by
surrounding me with wisps of cold.

Cream and cherry topped with jam and jelly,
Oh, how swell! how heavy!
The bowl spills over my hands, is awkward
to hold and much more difficult to
manoeuvre than a usual cone that
fits into the palm, is quick and easy to polish off.

The banana, sliced open right through
the middle, ready to be mixed up, ready
to be eaten. Where do I begin and where shall I end,
for its complicated, love, this sundae on
a hot summer's afternoon.

Just as complicated as you.

Inverted

Inverted in real life

all fantasies: the whir of

the fan signals the depth

of the empty afternoon.

Only sleep. Sweet tender sleep

causes a lull in the house, a chalice  

full of summer heat

of pan fried eggs and potatoes.

Inverted, all fantasies

of loving and beloved,

Of Astrophil and Stella,

Beatrice and Dante,

that little Heer and that mighty

but helpless Ranjha, that Arjumand and his

Taj Mahal erecting husband.

Inverted all love: three-fourths

submerged like an iceberg in water

existing only in the heart

that flutters at the desk or in a pub

or a hospital

silently beating down time

existing without words

or voice or even a tremor

of the wind.

Trajectory

This going over and over
and over the same thing:
this vision revised and re-revised;
this situation confronted again and again
in the mind – like this
no no – in life –
like that.

perhaps we are the diamond drivers
sparkling in our cars
from behind windows
tinted with fear or hate or peace.

perhaps we bother too much
with the ripped ribbons, the
torn wrapping paper
and the dented box
to marvel at the real gift underneath.

let me leave them all behind –
the cars
the boxes
the visions and revisions

let me say to you
one soul to another
an equal
always and forever

may the Great Being who sees all
knows all
guides all
be with you
regardless of whether I am
or not.

Puzzles

that one’s a wife, that one a mother;
this – the boss, that one – a school friend and this – a colleague
but I? Neither mistress nor cousin,
neither lover nor stranger: I am
a speck that fell into the cracks
of your life, a grain of sand
caught in your eye, a shadow
on the road you pass by.
To your dismay, all labels I defy.

What do you do with the piece that doesn’t fit?
What to do when the jigsaw niggles and nitpicks?
How connect with the one you cannot slot?
How discard the piece without collapsing the overall
plot? Such questions you find your lot.

Blue Memories

You breathe the germ
of sleep; the streelight
by the window spewing sodium-vapour
taping your features orange.

Curled up on the floor
beside the bed, I watch
the orange tape glow bright
over your naked shoulder, your lithe arm,
your breath congealing
silence between
us. Between

those two feet from the floor
to the bed. Outside in the night's
spring, by the windowsill,
a sea of rolling leaves:
their dancing shadows
between your shoulders and
my feet.

Father Time ticks away the ginger burnish
to a bulging blue, a concatenation
of blues – as if I were underwater
and the schizophrenic sunlight split
into a sea of blues, as if the shadows
of leaves turned into mere fish swimming
past me, as if my feet were really fins
and my fingers did not exist.

Dawn breaks the window, shatters
the warm sulphuric glow: shadows palpitate
as I turn to stone – neither human
nor fish – no hands or fins - and become
just a memory
in your breathing present.