February 2023
In this issue
Contents
Oxygen to the Brain
The author, along with her family, go for a snowboarding post-quarantine vacation and she discovers, among other things, layers of meaning in Frost’s poem.
My Baba, Myself
The author and her daughter relate to their roots via the ashtonishing route of blueberries and how it represents the author’s grandmother.
Before The Father He Knew
As they walked down the hallway, he felt embarrassed at the thought that if the restaurant were full, he wouldn’t be able to pick out Xaver. Fortunately, it was between lunch and dinner hour, and the restaurant was empty. The lone man sitting at the back table looked like an older version of a photo Finn had seen of Xaver.
O(ra)cular
The author studies the interaction of sunlight with the stirred water in a bowl.
Grandma Stone’s Hair
The house seemed to be riddled with mysterious happenings. One evening, while he was climbing up the stairwell to his room on the second floor, he felt an unexpected gust of cold wind. It was the last spell of winter, and he knew there could not possibly be such a wind from the south, yet he could clearly feel its bite.
Sounds Heard in a Tent at Night
I am not sure if they made any sound. Returning to the tent, I poked my head into the flap and saw myself still asleep on the ground. With an emerging daze at the back of my head, I looked up from the bag to see that there was nobody at the tent’s entrance. It was zipped shut.
Pictures, more than Words
Shine a light through my gullet doc and you’ll see intestine walls lined with fishes that I drew as a kid. Fishes, yeah. Plural. Tried to warn them about war, doc. Nobody listened.
i, momentary luck
if the wind caught open scars and distant checkbooks there was no indication it was broke
The Word of Mouth Spiritual
We made love in the kitchen, dinner cooked In the stove, and then burned in the stove. I don’t recall what the third mouth was doing As her first mouth kissed me and the second mouth Talked and inhaled and talked and exhaled.
Confluence of Three Rivers
One of three brothers, one of three sons, he tells me, one Sunday his oldest brother choked him unconscious onto the kitchen floor just to see what might happen.
My City 3 – in my head -1995
Elsewhere. she plays dumb, prefers the old school dumpster meeting in silence. Or the local Pentecostal bad boy and his one-hour evening advice sessions. Or playing dutiful daughter, Or playing tad dumb.
Mumbai Local
A country of broken tiffin-boxes we are- If you come from my village for lunch at my city home let me know beforehand; we shall meet at Curry Road station, both you and I…
You and Me
Both will be stuck with the tab at the end of the night. I’ve been the lawyer, so sure that I can argue down disdain; the doctor, trying to heal the broken at all costs. Nobody wants to drink alone, but everyone does.