Minakhi Misra

Hey, Misra! Wait! I see
Montu bhai running. After
He vanished a few years ago
I hadn’t seen him. Running
Was his thing. Still working
On that, I guess. He lived
On our street. A few years
Earlier, he’d left a rented room
Without paying the rent. He owed
Someone else too. Thought
He was too clever to be caught.
He got time to think it
Through. The bars in his jail cell
Hadn’t been nice to him.

You going to the Mart, Misra?
Yeah, yeah. You too? No, no.
Too expensive. Everything is
Anyway. How are you?
Okay okay. Going to the Mart
And saying okay? Why you
Must be doing just fine. No,
Somethings aren’t available
Elsewhere. There’s a big sale
Too. Big on the purse too? No.
Too much. Some brands cost
Less in the Mart, Montu bhai.
Brands? I buy loose. Always
Not the best quality, though.
Brand is quality, Misra? Come on
Into the Mart, Montu bhai.
Walk with me. Up the stairs,
You get household stuff. Too
Many of those at home. Already
There’s such a crowd. Inside
Isn’t the safest. Way into the Mart,
There’s a quiet corner. To talk
Social distancing is futile. Anyway,
Let’s just stay outside. Marts
I don’t trust, Misra. With my wallet,
I prefer small shops. Mom and Pop
Doing okay? Okay okay. Okay.

Look at those legs! So short
A skirt in Berhampur. Is rare
To see such beauty. You need
Good karma. I tell you, is rare!
Come on, let’s check out
The new items in the Mart, Misra.
Umm. What? Is good quality
Not what you want to grab?
She isn’t loose, Montu bhai.

I knock early on her door.
She thinks I’ve come to shout.
I show a plate of Thursday sweets.
Mother feels sorry about yesterday,
I tell her. Thanks for understanding.
She smiles her suspicious smile.
Two-three days it will take, she says.
What? I ask. The wood, she says.
What wood? I ask and she frowns.
The wood your mother wants
Me to remove from your yard.
But, I don’t understand, wait.
You’ve already removed them, no?
What? she asks. The wood, I say.
I haven’t removed any wood.
There’s no wood in our yard.

She rushes past me, past the door,
Past the street, past the cows,
Past our gate, and screams.
Where’s my wood? Where?
Mother walks out of our door.
Where’s the wood? she hears.
What wood? she asks and frowns.
Didn’t you remove it last night?
No, screams the woman. No.
Where is the wood? Tell me.
I woke up to find the yard empty,
Says Mother. I felt bad for shouting
At you yesterday. I made sweets
For you and your kids too. See?
I show her the plate of sweets.
She storms out and our Tulsi pot
Bends over to touch her feet.

She knocks on neighbours’ doors.
Where’s my wood? she asks them.
What wood? they ask and frown.
My wood in the Professors’ yard.
Ask them. Their yard. Your wood.
It’s too early for all this, no?
On a Margasira Thursday too.
My wood’s gone. Stolen. Gone.
She’s hiding it, yes. That’s right.
Them? Really? Really? Them?
Yes. She didn’t want it there, yes.
Your son graduated because of her.
She didn’t want the wood, yes.
She storms into our yard again.
No pots bend down to touch feet.
Where’s the wood? she screams.
Mother tells her she can come in
And search the whole place.
Just don’t scream, she pleads.
He’s still recovering. Please. Sshh.

I keep the neighbours at the gate.
They want to know what happened.
Someone stole her wood, one says.
What? another asks. The wood, I say.
What wood? he asks and frowns.
The wood she kept in our yard.
The wood your mother shouted about?
Same same. Gone this morning.
Overnight? Overnight. Shiva Shiva.
No sound or noise? Earphones, I show.
I didn’t hear anything, says one.
But we heard your bedding, says another.
All laugh. I smile. They see the sweets.
For her, I say. Of course, of course.
Just a little bit? Thursday prasad, no?
The plate empties itself. All, a little.

She empties out of the house, crying.
Shiva Shiva. Gone, all gone. Gone.
Stolen. Overnight. On a Thursday.
Why didn’t you lock your gate?
‘Cause you made a ruckus yesterday
When we did and you couldn’t
Get to your wood in the morning.
All gone now. On a Thursday.
You shouldn’t fight all the time,
One helpful neighbour helpfully says.
Shut up! My wood is gone now.
What if I enter your house and steal?
Our house, I say, but shut up again.
She looks at the empty faces all around.
I look at the empty plate. All gone.
I walk inside and lock the door.
Mother offers an opened box.
I pick up a sweet and take a bite.
No ghee, no sugar, yet so yum.
Grandma was right, I say.
Thursday sweets taste yummier
When cooked on a wood fire.

1.

I consume too much.
I produce too little.
I’m the Atlas who shrugs
All his earthly cares
And keeps scrolling on.

2.

I await Grammarly Filters,
So I can write ugly
And blame the software
For not giving options
Enough to pretty it up.

3.

I ordinarily like and love,
And share niceness.
But there is a genius
In the way I outrage.
You’re welcome.

1.

I envy the municipal road.
People walk and spit on it
Like they also do on me.
But at least the lucky fucker
Gets laid again and again.

2.

The only shooting star
That ever granted my wish
Appeared in a B-grade movie
Once, and never again.

3.

My dates end like chess.
She resigns the moment
I’m this close to mating.

She yells at me to come back.
And tells me she isn’t begging.
There, I can have my note back.
There, sanitized too. No virus.
She tells me she reads palms
But doesn’t spread them out.

I pull out my own sanitizer,
Rub the coldness on my palms,
And spread them out before her.
She tucks the note close to heart,
Wields the cracked magnifying lens,
Squints her eyes, shakes her head.
Double life lines. Running parallel.
Double the life, double the death.
Double the miseries in between.
She eyes my masked smile.

Too many lines, she complains.
Too many, but too thin, too short.
You try too many things? Yes.
Try too many women? Not really.
Love will find you soon. Soon.
I’m already married, I lie.
She eyes my ring finger. Scoffs.
Must be an absent wife, then.
Or an empty life. Sold the ring?
She eyes my smile again.

You don’t work hard now.
Used to, not now, yes? Yes.
For virus? No. Love? Yes.
Soon. It will come soon.
I nod, trusting her totally.
What do you do? I write.
Big-big books, yes?
No. Small-small poems.
Love poems? Not really.
They are no good. Soon.
Poems bring money? No.
Fame? No. Food? No.
That’s who you married?
You can say that, I guess.
No money in your lines.
No one pays us visionaries.

Want to learn reading palms?
Want to teach? Yes.
How much? No charge.
No Guru Dakshina, then?
In time, in time. Not now.
You have time on your hands.
I eye the parallel life lines:
Double the time.

When Adam’s apple
Got stuck in his throat,
Eve threw hers away.
Was it the first time
That an apple fell
Not far from the tree?

Just one bad apple
Spoiled the whole bunch
Of human maleness,
Upsetting the apple-carts
Of Genesis and Genetics,
Never giving us a second bite.

When Gravity stumbled
Upon an apple hanging out
In his not-yet-knighted presence,
Did Isaac Newton trade
The orchard for that single apple?

Then why do we wise apples,
Trade the apples of our eyes
For Apples with retina displays,
Comparing all the while
Apples and oranges,
Vitamins A and C,
Forgetting we need both
Of them and those doctors
We’ve been keeping away?

1.

If Spiderman shot his swinging webs
Only at the walls of a single tower,
He might beat around the building
A bit, but ultimately get nowhere.

That’s why I swing on metaphors
Sticking to different vantage points.

2.

Some days I wake up to find
Strands of fallen metaphors
Littering my pillowcase.
Too weak to take root.
Too dry to hold their own.
Into the recycle bin, then?
Or maybe collect them all,
Donate to the barbershop.
He’s been recycling his stories.

3.

Roshi, please enlighten me
How to maintain mindfulness
In the face of mighty boringness
Of chopping dinner vegetables.

“Pay attention to the metaphor
Arising in the moment.”

You mean like noticing how
When we expose our insides
After Life drives a blade through us
People just scoop out our cores
And throw them in a recycle bin?

“Or remember the real threat
To one’s vows of non-violence.”

The need for self-preservation?
“Hunger. We are all waiting.”

Nights have never been quiet here.
Not on this vibrant cowherd street.
Children wake up to raised voices,
Learn the words, and sleep again.
Adults snore. They know the words.
Sometimes, dogs bark in protest.
Or cows belch, bellow, and groan.
Though, never the cats. Okay, twice.
But you don’t hear shrieks anymore.
That generation is too old, too dead.
Bruises aren’t that fashionable now.
It’s easier to divorce and get another.

The machinery came first.
Then the aggregates —
Stone and sand and betel juice.
He waited for the cement
That was held up somewhere.

Fourteen inches, he told us.
That’s how high they’d raise
The distressed concrete street.
Remember, he says, — Babu is
The one who’s paving the way
For your upliftment. Vote, okay?

How high is that? one asks.
Like a foot or something?
A foot and a finger, he says.

What about our pipes
That run into the drains?
He shrugged. Not my problem.

And our sacred pinda platforms
For our jhoti-chita doodles?
He shrugged. Not my problem.

And the third step of the Shrine?
It’s bad omen to have only two.
He shrugged. Not my problem.

Where’s that cement, he asked.
Sir, they are taking it away, sir.
What? Who?
The street residents, sir. Citizens.
What? Why? Hey! Drop that sand!
How do we build the road?
We only shrugged.
We are polite that way.

I step out of the Dream
Into the Museum of Truth.
Only one installation.
No artist’s plaque.
No instructions.
No Do-Not-Touch-Artwork.
One giant Picasso Ball. Blue.
Several pinhole glasses
Polkadotting its walls.

Is Truth inside? To be seen
From one angle at a time?
Never the Whole, Nothing but.
The lenses are curved too
With unknown focal lengths.
Some images are far. Small.
Some in my face. Large.
Top grade in Engineering Drawing
But not very helpful, here and now.

Is it moving too?
Opening up here,
Closing down there,
Turning right out of focus.
What’s left, diffusing,
Going back into Nothing
In front of my darting eyes.
Blind men touching elephants
Have better odds to form
The composite Whole.
Not for me this Truth.
I step back into my Dream.