I awaken wet, salt constellated
on the bedsheet, shirt, corners
of my stale mouth; my brain blinks
on the dream waning fast –
I sleep somewhere else and tonight’s bed
lies empty here. I can see them both.
What do you want? I ask the absence.
Exactly. It answers. Whatever it means by that.
My dog snarls from the older billet.
Moonlight drips from its distorted maws.
Cold emanates from my breathing as if
this chest keeps the doors of emotion’s icebox ajar.
I drink some water. A mouse scurries afar
peddling a shadow from darkness to darkness.
Through the open window the neighbor’s window
opens the intimate features of his interior.
Water and sweat, night shouts from a maze
of carnival mirrors, and the left palm of its
mischievous mate conceals a mea culpa grin.
Kushal Poddar
Picture Nick Victor
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