by FABIYAS M V
Our evenings have withdrawn
into a closed living room,
where we don’t chat
but let a large TV cheat us.
We watch life on a screen
with a vicarious thrill.
There were children everywhere
in our ancestral home.
You could see one
even within a bamboo basket
lying upside down.
‘One’ is the ideal number now.
No one likes
noises annoying the living room.
We’ve banished our only daughter
into an adjacent study –
where she’s seen
as a broiler chicken.
A savory smell,
wafting up from the kitchen,
used to tickle my nostrils,
while sitting on the veranda.
Now our cooker rarely whistles;
fast-food parcels really silence our kitchen.
Our pa and ma had defeated the hard soil.
It was their sweat drops
that soothed our stomachs.
We’ve discarded the defunct parents
in a dark stinking room,
even where they pray for us.
We peep into others’ life
with a voyeur’s eyes.
Love and fun hatch not
out of our muted words.
We aren’t living here,
only imagining of living.
First published in The Literary Hatchet, US, and then reprinted by punkswritepoemspress, US.