zaumxs

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PROSE

The Kitchen Table

The world ends at the kitchen table.

/

We sit there- me and my dad,

And my brother when he is home from the States.

/

It’s just the two of us tonight,

And her

Always there

Like the house’s spirit.

/

She is making hot rotis-crafting them as

Perfect circles of flat bread, unleavened

Yet rising out of some magic

With a black burnt spot or two here and there-

Crisp, with a dollop of sweet butter at its centre

Seductively floating to its circumference

Like an iceberg melting into an ocean.

/

We dine together- all of us

Except her, of course.

She eats later- cold rotis

And other stuff passed off as leftovers.

/

My dad- seated across me,

Is texting away to someone

Or maybe reading gossip about Him-

The one who’s given him and many like him a job;

I wonder why he didn’t have one here for my brother

Who’s probably having his breakfast cereal

With low-fat milk in a bowl kept beside a screen

Reflecting white, lurid light-hypnotic like a

Snake charmer’s whispers to his serpent slave

/

In a foreign land

/

We are all invisible to each other

/

And what am I doing?

I am writing this on the kitchen table- why?

Because a few days ago

I had bit my tongue

And just now I bit it again

At the same spot

When trying to speak while chewing my cud.

I felt like telling you about it-

I don’t know why.

RETURN