God Comes With a Hairdryer
It's not too late
to
dust the leaves of the houseplants
speckled with bits of
chewed fingernails.
Daughters with anxiety
love to cook potato shells
every weekend,
buy purple bottles
for strawberry-shampooed hair
and iron the gift packet crisp
before wrapping the tiny leg of grief around it.
The jabberwockish recipe
from grandma's cookbook
is an easy answer to every riddle in her life and
mother's theory that nobody but God saves her.
God comes on Sunday afternoons and runs around with a hairdryer;
she must not be allowed to sleep with
her Wet Head.
Mother has dialled God.
it's a dangerous place
her wet and wobbly head
with insides as soft as
butterfly eggs.
The Moon in Winter
I wrap the blanket
More tightly around me today,
the apples have wilted into a mud brown,
The lazy brush twirls and
fingers dance
over stubborn woollen floors.
My coat waits lazily on its stand,
I snuggle into it for an evening walk
with the dying sun.
Languages of affection
create dents on my paper cheeks.
The wine bottle slips away
I talk through the night
to the lemony moon over
soft music and curled toes.
The moon crawls under the blanket
singing goodbyes to the ghosts of leaves and an
apple red sky
and wraps its light around
To rest with me.
The Moon is My Childhood Laughter
Nobody likes to stay in my home
where wet clothes never dry up
where loneliness plays
hopscotch alone in the courtyard.
I throw the moon at the sky
like the sprawling laughter
my grandmother loved to hear
like the yellow frisbee from
my girlhood.
I give her a bowl of hot milk
before she leaves.
And she leaves
as happy as a stray cat-
little, round and so complete
like the lives of dragonflies
in Autumn.
Anandi Kar, a proud queer, is currently pursuing a Master's degree in English Literature from Jadavpur University.