---

the lazy green/ a crane-friend/ a tethered, lengthy rope/ white lily blossoms/ the plentiful

onions, ginger and garlic: salt, then turmeric, pepper, chilly and coriander powders:

haystack/ loving arms to caress the skin, while the soap forms a lather/ cud-chewing/ milky

tomatoes, potatoes: cooker-whistles: beef

dreams/ strong hoofs/ swishy tail/ robust and insistent horns/ bulk of a frame

 

served with tapioca, ripe from the fields;

nostrils tickle, tummy-full,

while Nandini moos in the shed,

and kicks the bucket.

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Nithya Mariam John is a poet, translator and editor from Kerala, India. Apart from her three short collections of poems titled Ruminations and Reflections : A Pinch of Poetry & Perspectives, Bleats and Roars and  Poetry Soup, her scribblings are housed in Indian Literature, The Alipore Post, Borderless, gulmohar quarterly, theravenquothpress (Dreams), latinanthology (Memories on Food), Hyderabad Literature Festival-Khabar, Muse India, The Samyuktha Poetry, Malayalam Literature Survey and are forthcoming in Usawa Literary Review and Sanglap . She loves pothos, sugar and milk. But nothing matches her love for books.