An autumn afternoon
you're taking too long to cut the apples
uneven, peeling them much below the surface
the sofa offers its hand to rest a head on
outside, the slow drag of the world
steers both towards and away

Of late, it's the yellow in the leaves
marble cooling on bare feet
cycles, slow and quiet on the dust
knocks on my window from a brown eyed bird
the ring of a new text just before sleep
your apple peels piling
red sheathing yellow
skin holding on
to too much of its flesh.

-

There is a pill bug
impressioned in the soil, my shadow
towering over life and its grave.

Many thousand years from now
if we somehow survive this
someone will split a rock into two
and perhaps find this mold
of a life so terribly cluttered in a body
that has now decayed
and will wonder perhaps about this day
how sunny and warm
making us crawl out of our homes,
open in a world that made something so small
hide itself beneath plates of chitin.

Imagine a dozen and more legs
and still being buried close to home.

I am walking well into the night as the day grows heavy behind me,
already a thing of the past.

A tiny heart throbs
silently beneath my soles
as the shape of a pill bug fades
a little more with each step.

-

Long days

-

My bed.

I still sleep on one side of it
even when it's sized for three
my legs tall enough
to spill over if I stretch
shaded by two browns
both stamped by dust of yesteryears
it sits with an ancient calm
cramped on the inside
flooded with smell of
the last few months
winters sublimating at a corner
and a small space for this summer's haul
covered by plywood
of the same colour, just thinner
you may sleep on it
not knowing or caring what's inside
a colour block bedsheet demanding both of your eyes
On days when it becomes too hard to sleep
I'm reminded why my bed is a little too much like me.

-

Appi and the oak tree.
(Short story)

-

How heavy is this happiness
it could drown in mercury
like a tiny sinking boat
the feverish kind
the kind that makes you stretch your lips
like the untouched skin of a drum
how filling
how whole is this happiness
like a circle made in MS paint
that spills all colour from the bucket
on the entire sheet
through an invisible hole
how bold is this happiness
the kind that shimmers
and swells
like chai on stove
the kind that rises and rises
till it overflows
down the walls to the slate to the floor
onto your feet
A happiness so foreign
it smells like yesterday's milk
Clean it before it stains, I say
Let it stay
Let it burn a little, I say.

-

We are a family of two daughters.
I count us on my fingers
as the winter night turns our feet cold.
Two daughters in a quilt
waiting for the other to sleep
so that they can slyly snatch
each other's share of cotton warmth.
On rare nights
the space between us
is filled with stories of maa
of when she hung posters in her room
of cricketers and bollywood stars
or sneaked her way to the cinema
or laughed
without pause.
The quilt is warm enough for us all
on such honeycomb nights.
I turn my smiling face away
and count us on my fingers
one, two, three.

-

COFFEEHOUSE

The glass window is a picture in motion
feet on streets, mind in commotion
tweed skirts and knitted blouse
it's quiet up here in the coffeehouse

clementines for the woman in blue
children appearing like morning dew
dogs that are stray and dogs that were bought
balloons flying to the owner they sought

two ants fight right by some potted lilies
war cries, battalion, an army of families
join the tranquil twelve leg mesh
to win a grain of hard, sweet flesh

a couple of roses for a couple in the park
as a fountain's drizzle cloaks the rock
and two hands shyly draw close
between four unwinded brows

by the sunset, a bird has met her spouse
but it's quiet up here in the coffeehouse.

-

•Just a few feet away•

-

A day before I died

-