Two-time Best of the Net anthology nominee Ajay Vishwanathan, published in over forty literary journals, including elimae, DecomP, Toasted Cheese, Orange Room Review, and Centrifugal Eye, lives in a world of words and viruses. He has an obsession for one, shows reverence for another. His world is based in Georgia.

Tinkling

Those days in summer come to mind -
soiled palms holding dried branches like whips,
greasy faces with easy grin, tanned in rustic sun;
my friend and I sat on the rock staring
at women, willowy in long-sleeved blouses,
skinny hands clutching earthen pots
balanced on saree-wrapped heads, anklets tinkling
around bare feet, sweeping winds steeped in gentle sounds,
as they walked in colorful pairs
along a slender caramel road arching between green fields,
sunflowers nodding in even rows.
Little pearl goats grazed in nonchalance, oft bleating,
heads buried in curious corners, and bleating again
as the ladies passed them in vibrant waves.
A woman stood beside a cow, veiny hands,
bright red bangles chiming on her wrist,
caressing its head mellow, motherly eyes
following the movement of its calf,
milky, hungry, suckling at generous udder.
I want to return to those simple summer days
but in person, tired of returning again and again
as memories of a pining past.


_________________________________________________________________________________

Into Nests Of Foes

Not sure what to expect I pause,
holding my fort alone,
breathless in awe,
staring at a young coyote
that stares back at me
standing in the clutch of my backyard,
as unsure of my take on his presence.
Not heeding his mother's words
he'd wandered into places he shouldn't,
into nests of foes, of unsure men
who pelt stones when afraid,
who in dread raise weapons to kill.
Is he lost? Is he hungry?
Did he run into my cove
lead by a hunted prey?
Is he waiting for me to charge at him
like predators usually do
or fling an object that he can duck?
In the brief groping moment I wish
he'd feel my pain, my guilt of knowing:
what brought him to my door
was me, my men, my people
who took his grass away, seized his land
to make homes and happiness,
pushing his search for survival
to grounds that were once his very own.
As I turned around and stole into my home
I felt his stare behind me but didn't look,
hoping he would go away and return to mother,
tell her - I saw man whose eyes for once
didn't fuss or fume but bore something,
something that said we were wronged.

_________________________________________________________________________________

The Cry Of A Boy
(to the girl child)

It hasn't rained this side of the world in two years.

Standing near a grill-less, glass-less window
of the village hospital, his mind a scene
of war of thoughts, of contradiction,
he waits for the cry of his newborn, oblivious
to the pounding rain, leaves stumbling across the dirt road,
to the high winds screaming past the trees
that hiss and rattle, irascible,
like untamed stallions.

Parched fields haven't bathed in two years.

White cats huddle under a bench, hiding
from dripping roofs, from clattering shutters.
He thinks of father, clenched fist, brows curled
like an angry cobra, how he howled:
A girl is not welcome.
He thinks of love in the household
clinging with tired hands to faith,
moribund after three straight girls.

With no rains, nothing to harvest in two years.

After hearing his wife cry for a week, maybe more,
for a month, two, till she found belief again
in her budding womb: will come trampling
the shadows of anguish - a son
who will erase the blemish of his sisters,
letting his mother smile again, no more
a cursed womb that bears no boy,
he clutches hope hard in the soaked hallway, still waiting.

The rains will finally bring food to plates after two years.