Quadrangle
On Sundays, we sunbathe like cats
in the wash area’s jail light.
Sun stripped through coconut bars,
our bare thighs salt-stuck to cement.
Dear roomie leans in: her breath brushes my ear,
zzrrrreee! like cicadas curling lit-heat into the air,
her thumb encircling the soft of my palm,
a pulse I almost name,
then swallow.
I am the List I Cannot Finish
What desire does a list hold that completion cannot?
Where does intention live when action never follows?
Why does “call mother” stretch more than “buy shampoo”?
Which version of me keeps writing “write” and never writing?
Who is the one making these lists: me now, or me hoped for?
When did “make list” become the most reliable ritual of my day?
What lives between “send email” and “leave him again”?
Which urgency justifies being written in all caps?
Where does a task go when it is never crossed out?
What is the shape of a life too full to check itself off?
Why do I feel more whole when I am listing what I will not do?
Eshwari R is from Bengaluru. Her work has previously appeared in Agents of Ishq, The Ambedkarian Chronicle, Open Dosa, Neralu, Goya, and elsewhere.