Warm glass to cold plate,
prattle or oscitate,
complain or distort:
“Life’s too short!”

The only window in the den
trades smoke and oxygen
for half-gentle mocking:
“Except when you’re talking!”

—

Vinayak Varma, 2020

—

(Illustration from ‘Good Night and God Bless’, Anita Nair, Penguin, 2008)