Why There's Never Enough Food in the House
    Come, don't waste any more time.
Sit with me,
let's be serious.

You say it is a tree dog that looks like a cat
and I say it is our ineptness,
it is failure that makes our breath stink
and trips us when we walk.

You insist it is a tree dog
that gnaws on bananas
while we lie locked
behind trembling eyelids,
dreaming with our mouths open.

I say it is our inability
to rub two coins together
and make three.
Coins aren't like sex
you say.

What about the empty refrigerator?
or the soft peanuts,
the mold growing beneath
your fingernails-
you laugh
and show me
the back of
your mouth.

You insist
that it had to be
a tree dog
and our only shortcoming
is that we always forget
to shut the windows.

  		 
 
Kuzhali Manickavel lives in a small temple town on the coast of South India and shares her living space with a cursed mango tree and a rhinoceros beetle in a shot glass.