A Textbook Afternoon
Anannya Uberoi
Photo credit: Anannya Uberoi, 2019
A textbook afternoon
half the cover falling off, half
coiled between your legs,
the bed is a tulip field from
the golden sun, my eyes are
closing from the light as I
reach for the end of the
warm, brown curtain like a
dormouse hanging on a
tablecloth. The duel between
my eyes and the sun, struggling
to rid my arms of the weight of
your creme-quilled pillow up
like an egg in the brightness,
short-lived. An hour hence,
we are watching the window
from a common angle: the sun
softer, your hair darker, my
eyes wider.
I often tell you I dig things
sans
meaning: watching you
for hours, open-mouthed,
in a safe haven of words
we create spontaneously
without definitions and
poems that exist as
mere permutations of,
the afternoon:
sans
meaning,
sans
design,
sans
conversation.
A squirrel dashes to a
squash blossom on the grass,
and somewhere between your
thrusts and nudges a few
sparrows flew into our lawn
and have nestled there.
Author photo credit: Tanya Shrivastava 2020
Anannya Uberoi is a full-time software engineer and a part-time tea connoisseur based in Madrid. A travel junkie, she logs her experiences from unconventional journeys on paper. Her poems and short fiction have appeared and are forthcoming in several publications, including The Delhi Walla, eFiction India, Lapiz Lazuli and Deep Wild.
