Dichotomy 

“And from growing dim, the coals

Fall alight. There are two ways to be.”

                                                    ― John Ashbery

Something in the way parents fight

suggests there’s a chance you might suck

at love, suggests a chance every thrumming

animal sucks at love. Now, don’t be afraid.

If only love could counterpunch guns

and bombs, let’s say, with rivers of dazzling

pheromones glistening like gold fish sequinning

surfaces of water, participles of the mind’s ether

flowering in vastness of sunflower fields, sun

arching to tongue restless buds blooming

into bees unsung. All of it happens, all such

sounds transmitted infra and ultra, beyond

the reach of our sonic walls, all such sights

revealed in the nano-turbulence of blinking.

Maybe our incapacity makes love a relevant

thing. My friend says all European cities

are beautiful and similar, but the silence

is numbing on subzero nights.

This much I can tell you, she is right.

Recently I placed a slab of ice on my palm

to pin the slithery spectacle of thawing

to the map of my only grasp. Moments into it,

a tremendous icy pleasure took over and moments

into that, I was wincing from pain as if the absence

of heat suddenly developed teeth, my fingers

chattering like drumsticks after rapid percussion. 

Satya Dash's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Passages North, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Florida Review, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, Prelude amongst others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator too. His work has been twice nominated for the Orison Anthology. He spent his early years in Odisha, India and now lives in Bangalore. He tweets at : @satya043