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This is a poem of place. The goal here is to engage all of the reader’s senses. I wanted to let them feel the place, instead of just reading about it. The sounds, smells, tastes, temperature, hugs, refletion in a mirror, are all ways to ground someone in the place that I am talking about, which is our family’s home in India. The driving idea for this piece was to start with as “colorful” of a description as I could, only to juxtapose it against the sudden loss of sensations. The poem is written in tersets ending in a quatrain (Dante was great). The goal for revision here was to improve the rhythm by removing unecessary details.

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I wake up to the smell of mangoes and
the sounds of gurbani. The fan is off - must be papa, he thinks he’s funny,
switching off my fan this hot morning

I scramble for my glasses, I swear I put them
by the bed, but they’re under me. I must
have fallen asleep reading.

My slippers are gone. Mummy usually steals them. Oh well,
it’s barefoot time for me - at least - the tiles are cold. There’s something
sizzling in the kitchen, the smell tastes like a tadka.

Aiee: The door opens, and a human bullet hits
me. As is customary, my sister has decided to be the
koala to my tree self.

I wake up: alarm’s ringing. My fan is
on, slippers are where they should be, and there are
no koalas. The floor’s wooden and the TV is off.
All that there is, is my mirror and me.

Home

I wake up to the smell of mango milkshake and
the sounds of gurbani. The fan is off must be papa, he thinks he’s funny,
switching off my fan on this hot morning

I scramble for my glasses, I swear I put them
by the bed, but they’re under me. I must
have fallen asleep reading again.

My slippers are gone. Mummy usually steals them. Oh well,
it’s barefoot time for me - at least - the tiles are cold. There’s something
sizzling in the kitchen, the smell tastes like a tadka.

Aiee: The door opens, and a human bullet hits
me. As is customary, my sister has decided to be the
koala to my tree self. This is home.

I wake up, the alarms ringing. My fan is
on. My slippers are where they should be. There are
no koalas. The floor’s wooden and the TV is off.
All that there is, is my mirror and me.