Cinema
My grandparents came from a movie-going age – he would call from the office and my grandmother would dress all her children in evening clothes, and wait. At the cinema, the world dissolved into light and sound, the salt of popcorn on your fingertips, and pink soda that fizzed up your nose,
The Lakebed
In a riverless city, the promise of water is enough. My mother and I pin our hopes to each monsoon, and evenings in June that stroll the circumference of our bayou-to-be. Starved of fish, the empty lake harbours cattle, gangs of dogs and cricket games — we see snatches of batsmen thr
Silk Road
金, the gold caged bodhi tree among monks one quick-tempered another on the phone another ten years old dying monks among dying tourists among red eaves and paper walls they speak of peppered chives and burnt tea (and a cat strutting across the floor) 火, the fire has long deserted t
the smell in my room
What if the smell in my room is not the brown skin samosa cold in the corner, grease leaking through wooden floors, or the curry my mother left dead on the desk next to the photos where sunlight from a distant summer is caught between some fat boy’s teeth, laughing with [&h
Crawling Order
forget about hands and knees– his chest is on the ground. he is flattening himself like sourdough naan as men in hats stand sentinel and impatient. this procedure takes all day he is heaving his bones–elbows bear the weight of stomach, ribcage, legs for the distance of one hundred and fif
Telling with my eyes
This piece was originally written by the hugely influential Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa. Despite his many contributions to Japanese literature, his work is seldom translated into foreign languages due to his ascetic values which kept it hidden from the public eye. This piece is an attempt to intro
Mimicry
Mimicry She stoops to worship Mimicry, old, borrowed and belly-full of what has already been the start and end of ideas. She rewrites Genesis with a stale bible; a tea-ringed, deadened […]
Mourning of the Fleeting Day
Time flies! Time flies! I say: take a drink. I know not the height of green heavens, nor the depth of yellow earth, only that the icy moon comes after the scorching sun, that they cook our mortal lives. Those who eat bears shall be fat, they that eat frogs shall be thin. To the […]
Eggshell
Today she has scarcely moved. If there is understanding then that is what she feels this chrysalis Sunday, where new quiet doesn’t boom anymore – his echoes are softer, and she dusts them off into the bubbling boiling with the eggs. Three timid spines crest the water. She raises them carefully,