Inspired by Arundhati Roy

Mr. Shifty

I wrote this right after finishing "The God of Small Things"

Another Monday Morning

This passing dream
leaves an impression deeper than pillow lines looping listlessly
unscrubbed tracks through morning stubble cupped chinly
in my palms,
and my too red, too used eyes
let the world in, so sudden
crashing, churning, chasing
like a broken dam obliterates and scours the stream.
The TV flickers
slipping slogans into my coffee
like sugar:
a slick-slow descent into conformity.
History settles like a jacket
on my shoulders
over my eyes,
conceals the slow thrum-beat
siren-ache violin bow drawn too close
too long close to snapping,
a flapping bird wing pressed against a window pane,
a secret bursting like a flower,
a whisper, "a dream is a spark
in the blaze that burns down barriers,"
bringing me back, bruised and bashful,
blurred,
out-there, in-here, you, me, us, them
mixed and mangled,
history skewered and shed like skin.
Unconsciously, uncharacteristically, I opened the blinds;
the day fell in with a gasp.