Eyebrows
On a night when I cook fish for dinner,
my eyebrow develops fins
and slips away
from our shallow midnights
into a tear mistaken for an ocean
leaving me all alone in the bed
sandwiched between
one day of thankless work and another
and you drown yourself
in a glass of wine
the tip of which curls into a violent dream
You fish in your angry upturned brows
that look like boats
and trick me back into the misery
of a circus tent on my face
I keep smiling all day
unsure about when not to be happy.
Slightly Longer Than Reality
I learn the depth of smell from
the elephant’s snout –
the dark and curly tunnel of desire
that is slightly longer than reality.
When reaching out to the shoots of palm
in the hands of mahout,
he is trying to reach the elusive
smell of the forests’ solitude
and it keeps him going
among the festival crazy people
in my far away burning town
as it kept the child abandoned at the café
hooked to his ice cream
when his parents left for change
and never came back
as it keeps the bachelors
leaving alone in big cities
hooked to the aroma of a new dish they make
each time done to perfection
till the day they meet their elusive love.
Author’s Bio:
Aditya Shankar, based in Thrissur, Kerala (India), is a bi-lingual writer and
a short film-maker. He writes in English and Malayalam, and has published poetry
and articles in leading journals, including The Little Magazine, The Word Plus,
Indian Literature, The Literary X Magazine, Munyori, The Pyramid, Poetry Chain,
Mastodon Dentist, The Wild Goose Poetry Review, Bayou Review, Meadowland
Review, Words-Myth, Chandrabhaga, Miller’s pond, Message in a bottle, Aireings,
Hudson View, Snakeskin, The Legendary, Literary Bohemian among others.
His flash fiction has been published in The Caledonia Review
and The Other Herald. His short films have participated at International Film
Festivals. Currently, he lives and works in Bangalore, after completing his B. Tech in
Mechanical Engineering.
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