by Desh Balasubramaniam

I Have Become So Used to Your Ironing

It is not just I who have lost
his way since your leaving
Even the folds of my trousers
have misplaced their stature,
their strength
           –and sway in the wind without shape,
without answer


Unfamiliar Face

Sought this solitary shade, but
not all his lumber
Carved aside, the unwanted shreds
of a larger self
Redeemed them
with another—the unfamiliar face
          mirrored in bathroom fog
In tireless gasp,
clutch of words
and in demise of days—
sheared away
In bareness that reside,
lay next, an undraped nutmeg
her undying gape
No longer I
           from the moment we fell

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