Television
Television’s a beehive, each sting a hexagonal home. Desire
is ceremony. All is a picture – baby food, insomnia, honey.
Attachment grows in breadth, like suspicion – a queue of blinks.
Television is a room without a ceiling. Sky is a hand me down,
laughter a slave. Continuity is fourth dimension. Taste is groping,
a mild accusation. Newsreaders lose use of legs and feet. Socks itch.
Television is a courtyard: sequence is grain that birds steal. Mouthwash
becomes a pillow and then potluck dinner. Television is iambic
on a richter scale. You fiddle with its meter until the child’s homecoming.
Television is a command. Goodnight. You turn off the light. Television
becomes the woman in your head. Her silence disturbs. You pull the sheet
and read the rain. Your glasses are bookmarks. You become the television.
Balcony
The balcony’s a banyan tree. Its roots hang
in the air. She scrubs it hard, like an accent.
The wet rag becomes flesh. Blackgrape-dirt
juice squirts out of its pores. A breeze
knocks. A twig snaps. Sight asks for freight.
“Who goes, who goes?”
The boy holds the black grille like a matador
does the bull. Wet beads of joy tremble
on his nose. He owns the outside. Toes
are his jack. Elevation their bribe. He is king.
If he was older, he’d have been god.
“Who goes, who goes?”
The balcony’s a pair of binoculars. Eyes
bring instalments of pleasure. Afternoon
is a cow’s stomach. All is food, nibbles
of irises – women’s half-bun breasts,
aniseed talk, dead men sleeping like dolls.
“Who goes, who goes?”
“Too-ki”. Height is the den. Shh Shh.
Wheels, hoods, a dwarf world clamber
below. “Aatchoo”. Giraffe boy sneezes,
one, then two. A sparrow thinks the
world’s a worm. The balcony’s a zoo.
SUMANA ROY's first novel, Love in the Chicken's Neck, was long listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. She lives in the Chicken's Neck, India.
Television’s a beehive, each sting a hexagonal home. Desire
is ceremony. All is a picture – baby food, insomnia, honey.
Attachment grows in breadth, like suspicion – a queue of blinks.
Television is a room without a ceiling. Sky is a hand me down,
laughter a slave. Continuity is fourth dimension. Taste is groping,
a mild accusation. Newsreaders lose use of legs and feet. Socks itch.
Television is a courtyard: sequence is grain that birds steal. Mouthwash
becomes a pillow and then potluck dinner. Television is iambic
on a richter scale. You fiddle with its meter until the child’s homecoming.
Television is a command. Goodnight. You turn off the light. Television
becomes the woman in your head. Her silence disturbs. You pull the sheet
and read the rain. Your glasses are bookmarks. You become the television.
Balcony
The balcony’s a banyan tree. Its roots hang
in the air. She scrubs it hard, like an accent.
The wet rag becomes flesh. Blackgrape-dirt
juice squirts out of its pores. A breeze
knocks. A twig snaps. Sight asks for freight.
“Who goes, who goes?”
The boy holds the black grille like a matador
does the bull. Wet beads of joy tremble
on his nose. He owns the outside. Toes
are his jack. Elevation their bribe. He is king.
If he was older, he’d have been god.
“Who goes, who goes?”
The balcony’s a pair of binoculars. Eyes
bring instalments of pleasure. Afternoon
is a cow’s stomach. All is food, nibbles
of irises – women’s half-bun breasts,
aniseed talk, dead men sleeping like dolls.
“Who goes, who goes?”
“Too-ki”. Height is the den. Shh Shh.
Wheels, hoods, a dwarf world clamber
below. “Aatchoo”. Giraffe boy sneezes,
one, then two. A sparrow thinks the
world’s a worm. The balcony’s a zoo.
SUMANA ROY's first novel, Love in the Chicken's Neck, was long listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. She lives in the Chicken's Neck, India.
