Arranged Hopes
Hopes are arranged.
I take my seat.
The dishes shine and
instead of the tried and tasted cuisines
you serve something
that denies the temptation of the form and shape.
‘Mother, what will we have
tonight?’
‘Hope’, you say.
My father’s name is hunger
and since the day
he went to the factory
and returned slope-shouldered
he always lingers here,
near, too much near,
everywhere.
Kushal Poddar edited the online magazine Words Surfacing and authored The Circus Came To My Island (Spare Change Press, Ohio), A Place For Your Ghost Animals (Ripple Effect Publishing, Colorado Springs), Understanding the Neighborhood (BRP, Australia), Scratches Within (Barbara Maat, Florida), Kleptomaniac’s Book of Unoriginal Poems (BRP, Australia) and Eternity Restoration Project- Selected and New Poems (Hawakal Publishers, India)