Monkey’s Paw

 

A teargas shell tore off my bro’s hand;

since we called him a primate in childhood

we kept the hand, nicknamed it ‘Monkey’s Paw’,

presented it before every guest in our house,

cherished their shriek; the severed limb

just wouldn’t rot; the second hand revolutionists

often borrowed it for their demonstrations,

but no one asked my sibling what the paw

meant to him. Probably a missing link

in the evolution chain between Adam and Cain.

He wouldn’t have answered anyway, rather

scratched his arm’s end the way one alley cat

scratches the blind bricks when cornered

in dire need of some magic.

 

 

 

Kushal Poddar
Illustration Nick Victor

Authored ‘The Circus Came To My Island’, ‘A Place For Your Ghost AnimalsUnderstanding The Neighborhood’, ‘Scratches Within’, ‘Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems’, ‘Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems’ and now ‘Herding My Thoughts To The Slaughterhouse-A Prequel’ (Alien Buddha Press)

 


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