alongside my body. There, in a corner of the living
room, the essence of words like lavender is born. There
is no reason why God isn’t lurking somewhere here. The
implication is duality, at once both singing particle
and dancing wave, guilty of violating laws of motion,
the oddball iris sucked into a black hole of the world’s daily
believe-it-or-not moments. Among things God is
responsible for : in Bangalore, the municipality bans
plantation of flower saplings—you’d think this
is a joke. But some say it’s the right step; the meteoric
rise in pollen allergies has led to people sneezing
all day long. Others after some Whatsapp research point out,
the casuarina trees lining the busy roads are the main
culprits. Next to them on the street are anxious
automobiles, blaring salaried horns, distinct hum
of human hearts inside engine hearts inside the city’s
sooty heart—a neat Russian doll arrangement.
Inside a cab, morning coffee wears off in my bagpipe
veins. I haven’t slept in two days; my watery eyes crave
tears. In the day’s most clinical performance so far, a cloud
on the overcast matte-rouged sky holds a door open
for a strand of sunlight to hop through. In the back
of the cab, my co-passengers pooling in the ride—a little
girl tells her mother, her exams didn’t go well as some questions
were out of syllabus. She says she wants to be a teacher
someday, so she can set questions too. It’s hard not
to smile. My jaw aches. Pedagogy polished. A shine
impossible to preach. What does it take to scrub
parable? Before I change my mind—
I need some coffee.
room, the essence of words like lavender is born. There
is no reason why God isn’t lurking somewhere here. The
implication is duality, at once both singing particle
and dancing wave, guilty of violating laws of motion,
the oddball iris sucked into a black hole of the world’s daily
believe-it-or-not moments. Among things God is
responsible for : in Bangalore, the municipality bans
plantation of flower saplings—you’d think this
is a joke. But some say it’s the right step; the meteoric
rise in pollen allergies has led to people sneezing
all day long. Others after some Whatsapp research point out,
the casuarina trees lining the busy roads are the main
culprits. Next to them on the street are anxious
automobiles, blaring salaried horns, distinct hum
of human hearts inside engine hearts inside the city’s
sooty heart—a neat Russian doll arrangement.
Inside a cab, morning coffee wears off in my bagpipe
veins. I haven’t slept in two days; my watery eyes crave
tears. In the day’s most clinical performance so far, a cloud
on the overcast matte-rouged sky holds a door open
for a strand of sunlight to hop through. In the back
of the cab, my co-passengers pooling in the ride—a little
girl tells her mother, her exams didn’t go well as some questions
were out of syllabus. She says she wants to be a teacher
someday, so she can set questions too. It’s hard not
to smile. My jaw aches. Pedagogy polished. A shine
impossible to preach. What does it take to scrub
parable? Before I change my mind—
I need some coffee.
Satya Dash is the recipient of the 2020 Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize. His poems appear in Waxwing, Wildness, Redivider, Passages North, The Boiler, The Florida Review, Prelude, The Cortland Review and The Journal among others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator too. He has been nominated previously for Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best New Poets. He grew up in Cuttack and now lives in Bangalore, India. He tweets at: @satya04.