A Million Copies
I read that our bodies are composed of atoms,
atoms that probably have a million copies
in a million other galaxies.
I shudder at the thought of my distribution
as spectacular as it sounds,
I wonder what I am feeling now
Am I feeling the same feelings,
in a million different places?
Do I stutter the same way, as I stutter now?
Sitting alone in my studio apartment,
half-hearted, afraid to start,
should I then adopt a cat,
or grow a monstera beside the bed?
I don’t want to think about nurturing,
I tell myself to shut up.
But if all of these copies collided with one another
and ended with a long belch of blank spaces,
feeling as full to bursting after a Sunday lunch
shocking the positivity campaigners.
As spectacular as it sounds,
I am sleeping on this tonight,
a single copy.
Head-to-Head
No, she wasn’t a giveaway,
she was a hard bargain
and yet, the mister won’t confront her
so, he ate the rest;
scallop, skin, stomach, eggs,
all, but eyes, mouth, cheeks and gill
for she was there
at best,
to enhance his taste.
Shallow fried fish with ickle mouth agape,
smelling of spices ground
milled with an iron pestle,
is served in a heavy bronze plate.
Bold letters carved near the scallop,
strewn with cabbages on her head.
Gazing in an alarming jolt
her snout awaits
sullen, fried, untouched.
Blue
In these moist, thin, lids, hides a little blue star, whose cobalt vertices
once flaring, once faint,
keep receding,
leaving me stranded in a barren backwater,
some 20 kilometres away from my lungs.
I squeeze my eyes, to find trails of blue.
I find it as soon as I lose it; I lose it as soon as I find it.
Why won’t it remain like Polaris? Offer me clue to find my capricious Blue.
Sometimes I see Blue crawling under my skin, an undertone I conceal with a shade of orange.
Blue must be the ghost of me, someone who was butchered into pieces.
I am not afraid of it, not ever, not always. I know its skin must be as cold as crushed ice,
and that its hesitant about leaving me.
I pursue it still, like an anxious caregiver, but Blue is in hiding.
I do not see it. I see a sink, a wall, a mirror, and a toothbrush. I almost forgot about Blue.
Then it greets me again, a few blinks later, settling in the backwater,
before disappearing again, somewhere in the margin, Where? I cannot follow nor remember.
Illustration : Subarnarekha Pal