Black wire swirls the blade of the sun on blue.
Isolation is sweaty. Isolation is hot.
Smell of frying fish permeates the sphere.
Sphere is small. Sphere is caged in doubts.
My daughter crafts a snail necklace.
I hook its ends at the back of my love’s neck.
A hundred eyes watch me unzip emotion.
Hands are God. Hands are lonely.
We wait for the people from the government.
Government is. Government is.
KUSHAL PODDAR is the author of three collections of poetry: The Circus Came To My Island (Spare Change Press), A Place For Your Ghost Animals (Ripple Effect Publications) and Understanding The Neighborhood (BRP, Australia). His work has appeared in Men In The Company of Women, Penn International MK and Vine Leaves Literary Journal’s Best of 2014, and he was Tupelo Press’s featured poet for the month of December. He lives in Kolkata, India, where he is editor of the online magazine Words Surfacing, and writes poetry and fiction when not engaged in his day job as a lawyer in the High Court of Calcutta and as an English Language Trainer in various universities. Scratches Within is forthcoming.