Tremors – Smitha Sehgal
7.7 on the Richter scale but honey
I do not have time for this or anything else for I am
the circus manager and the clown and the dancing bear. Funny
that, once the tea sours I have no choice but to dilute
the joys and gulp down the epiphanies. When the crowd walks in
I am separating bones from soft cooked rice for the lion.
Do you know how it is to feed a lion that crouches in the dark
of its own mind, cold floors smelling of phenol? Disarray
of empty cartons, biscuit tins, and old green-tinged beer bottles.
For now we water down the morning, pale light, mother says it is
about to rain, among the unwashed utensils from the earthquake night
and the headache that stalked me back home yesterday evening,
across the scraggly hair and voice breaking through the thick curtains
of pretension, it’s show night, we have to hurry, hurry
on these days when doors and windows swing to the music of Gods making love
and the entire world spirals down the stairway
and I do not have time for this or anything else. Pale light.
Smitha Sehgal (she/ her) is a legal professional and poet who writes in two languages—English and Malayalam. Her poems have been featured in contemporary literary publications such as Usawa Literary Review, Panoply, Shot Glass Journal, Marrow Magazine, Ink Sweat & Tears, Gone Lawn Journal and elsewhere.
