The Greater Coucal
A groom in soot and copper,
neither crow, nor pheasant
he keeps to the undergrowth
hopping through the leaf-fall,
moving the earth
for the small hidden lives.
In your gait, I sense
a rhythm older than kindness
an auspicious omen for the pauper friend,
a cuckoo who knows no deceit
a paternal care feeding many a softer hunger
and an oft-sung lover of moonlight,
your flight is brief, almost reluctant
a steady drift between branch and ground
oop-oop-OOP-OOP, OOP-OOP-oop-oop
your resounding call stirs up
a buried folklore in the ears,
just like those startling kunnikuru eyes remind ancient blood beads
from a forgotten rosary.
Ammamma would hush me
do not call its name—chembothu—
or it gets no food that day.
Never once did I see his nest
although my cousins bragged
they spotted the crude shelter of twigs and leaves
over the bamboo thickets
and the crown of Cycas trees.
Your red eyes gave them nightmares
when Baalarama featured Dracula.
Today, I long for your deep calls
in my damp mornings and sundowns,
trusting them as sacred chants building
gyrations within me, and I tread slowly
with steady steps, metamorphosed into the bird.
Kunnikuru: the herbaceous flowering plant Abrus Precatorius, commonly known as Rosary pea, and Crab’s eye.
Chembothu: the colloquial name for the Greater Coucal.
Baalarama: a Malayalam children’s comic weekly published by Malayala Manorama Publications.
The Gospel of Flesh
A closed mouth refusing sun,
green and tight-lipped.
The fruit waits for a winged grief.
A cathedral of pollen on her thighs,
the female wasp chooses the unready fig.
Her body trembling with an unknown future.
She squeezes her way into the wound,
clipping her wings and sky forever.
Inside, two throbbing wombs
cursed by god.
She presses pollen into each ovary
blessing them like mother mary
before she dies. Her corpse
then becomes the flesh of the fruit.
From her grave emerges the prodigal son—
gold and translucent—
his instinct
threading through the wound
to his still unborn sisters.
The late brothers emerge at the brief
tunnel of light, offered like small prayers,
to the waiting mouths of prying ants.
They are decoys,
for their waking sisters full with pollen.
Two days of light,
in search of another sealed mouth,
to enter and die.
The sun shines on the fig, now swollen with light,
the crimson flesh
ripe enough for the mouth of the world,
which can never taste the story whole.
Priyanka Aravind P. is a poet, translator, and researcher based in Pattambi, Kerala. Her works explore the themes of love, nature, liminality, and human relationships. Her poetry has appeared and are forthcoming in anthologies and journals including the Wingword Poetry Anthology 2026, Toshali Anthology of Love Poems 2026, The Wise Owl, Madras Courier, Rough Diamond Poems, haikuKATHA. When not reading and writing, she enjoys music, playing with her toddler, and responding to birdcalls. She also translates poems, fiction, and non-fiction between Malayalam and English.