The Other
I am afraid of
these hallucinations
the yarns, gurgles
and names you drown--
sometimes let slip
between chews of toast.
Alas, your mouth
is clever, it swallows what slithered out
revised replies
squeezed out through teeth--
concealed by gulps
of coffee and dismissive laughs.
I can see them on
the sea-floor
the water is too
clear.
I search for her
anti-matter
Under your tongue,
nails and answers
her intersections
and backdrops you scaled
where have you
hidden her?
I am capable of
such self-torture
holding her
picture, zoomed
pixelated, extreme
close up
in a coiling rope
of curiosity
no greater hell
than comparison
her folds and
crevices and mine
did you notice
that mole?
picturing two
tangling,
unraveling
silhouettes.
familiar touch on
an alien skin
I am worried that
I will never find out
just betraying
signs of distraction
a touch too brief,
a reply too elusive
a truth too
decisive.
No, don’t muddy
the water
let it remain
borderline
let me remain too
in the end,
everything turns to poems
to dust, rust and
oblivion.
(From the anthology ' A Strange Place Other than Earlobes' by five Indian poets. Jeena Mary Chacko - mikimbizii@gmail.com)
For an acute poet, the suspicion of unfaithfulness is far more delicious a psychological state to explore than the actual discovery of unfaithfulness.
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