There are nights of all nights when the sky turns crimson red and the wind hollow. And on moon like this Chiyuki’s Hiroshi wails for her sea-sucked breasts. Hunger mounts and the neighbours’ laughter mounts higher still. Steady as a bat with her drum like fingers. She plays. The soft- mint like smile cripples his hunger and he chews his thumb to pieces. Chiyuki’s drum like fingers hold the liquid in the cup and slowly she swallows her baby’s crimson red hunger. Wails subside. Hunger subsides. Chiyuki’s music subsides. And by morning her drum like fingers turn splotchy red. And eyes wicked as stone. * This poem has been published in Ranu Uniyal’s first book of poems Across the Divide.

How to escape a Skinner box Electronic relationships are the easiest to erase Reject all phone calls, Blacklist the number, Block him everywhere Just hit the ‘delete’ button and it’s all over Go without talking to him this minute and you can Go the next and the next and for every minute after that As if nothing had ever happened. If one plus one is no longer infinity Cut him off; Erase all memories as though you had never met or known or understood or loved This man; Like no one had ever known or loved or understood you. Remember how big the world is and how little you are in it, How ephemeral your feelings and fallacious your knowledge Remind yourself: you are just five senses and He, seventy-two-point-six percent water; If this river runs its course Let it What would remain of you but A few photographs (delete them) A song (change the soundtrack) And the feelings after rosé-induced baby talk? Ignore, ignore all stimuli and chant this like a mantra: In a twenty-six letter world, eight are negligible Only one is holy ‘I’ Escape. *** Wendy Kroy Your attempts to win her over are The tale of Sisyphus’ life- Her wounded eyes, the spider’s snare When you lose yourself between her thighs, prepare To have her endless legs crush your neck- She’ll trap you in her web of lies Smile when you meet her Kiss her even; But be aware- Of that pistol in your pocket Never forget this: If you hesitate to kill her She will kill you; Beware- This is a woman to be worshipped, not loved; Aspire to no more than being her designated fuck, Whatever you do keep your opinions to yourself If she wanted the truth, she’d torture it out of you; Remember she likes her men like her drinks Stiff, blue Don’t try to run or hide You may be damned if you do but You’re dead if you don’t For the moment, prepare To be snuffed out like her hourly cigarettes. ***

There’s been a mistake. You didn’t expect this glitch. This vanishing point of a private murmuring city. This fumbling in a void of spreading formlessness (they told you it would be a flower, not a slit). Greedy mouth, how many fingers can you swallow? In the movies, you would unzip her out of her dress and she is sexy alabaster, leaning against the stairs, a sell-out pimping her nipples, readying them for your touch. In real life, she is tired of the metaphors - earth and mother and whatnot. In real life, ecstasy is far from pretty, a groaning sickness spasming on the carpet. You are quickly learning about the revolution that brews beneath her flesh - a whispered language of rite and ferocity and the invisible mountain she carries. That to sleep, you must lock away your inheritance. To emerge, a world must unlearn itself, then flood, then burn. When the twitching stops, you uncork her (of course, she is a bottle of wine to you) and pour out the paraffin from her mangled bones. Flickering tongues from hell lick the salt off her thighs. No pain felt she. Burn'd like one burning flame together. You went looking for strawberries, instead you found the manic whore, the universe’s relentless core.