on the days my head sounds like my father unbuckling
his belt my heart wakes like a failed jailbreak. my mother
is angry at the kitten, less for destroying the just-formed
cucumber, more for leaving them uneaten. i stare
at the bitemark meowed into it and believe all great poems
should have at least a syllable missing. in my mother's dream
her garden burned overnight. all i did was quote a leaf
and not cite it. how do i apologize except by remembering
the time i soiled myself and let her water me. i still dream
that chapbooks slip through the doors of my school's library,
pooling there like rubber tapped into coconut shells, waiting
for my grandfather to press them into sheets of desperation.
~ ajay
11/3/2025
first published in Poems India
