Four big splotches of lavender
Stain into pools on my pillow
Mother scoffs at camomile mint
A friend says candle on stick--
Jungle pine on distressed carved wood
Sliding into a child's pose is easy
Better still are dreams of trumpet,
Screaming sunflowers and bonsai trees
Meditation nidra might do the trick
As I ease into a nagchampa mist
Tranquilizer from Valeria
A cocktail of magnesia
Over blue filter is superior
Avoid books that bark and bite
Poems that bamboozle the mind
Mother calling after nine
Marry Marry Marry
Give me a hunk of foam
That is pillars, curly-cued and olding
Where I can read about animals
Who fit into luggages
From a hippo to a chimp to a bush baby
And before I can say menagerie
I softly fall asleep
Sneha Bhura is a Delhi-based journalist. Her first chapbook, Velvet Grapes: Drunk Midnight Poetry (Hawakal Publishers), was out in January 2021. Her most recent poems have been published in the Madras Courier, The Punch Magazine, The Chakkar and Plato’s Caves Online.