By: Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan

Flash Burns

A thick glass mask,
fish goggles
strapped to the face,
you look like a cartoon villain —
all you hope for
is that the flare does not burn
into your retina,

singe nerve ends.

My ways are different.
I doom scroll reels
of squealing babies,
and puppies
chasing their tails,
and never glance
at Instagram stories —

the razed city, its hungry children.

Inert Water

A drop of ink, indigo
drips from the luscious
mouth of the pipette.
Into the water
brimming inside
a cut-glass chalice.

The vessel pretends
that it’s a polished gem —
trapping white light
and divining
its seven inner lives
blending to one.

I wait, I yearn
to see how long it takes
for the ink to unfurl
its colour, one woven tentacle
yielding into another, diffusing
in the inert water.

Moulting

There are no fangs.
I do not fear
the fangs.

I dread the silent
slithering,
muscle rippling
under the dark skin
that will moult,

and will be left hanging
on my flower pots,

so I’d know
she was here.

Each morning
I leave the door
to the garden
open
like a lid-less eye.

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Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan is a nephrologist from Kozhikode, India. Returning to poetry after a three decade-hiatus he has published two books of poems — Almanac of the Sickle Moon (Hawakal Publishers 2025) and The Coppiced House (Writers Workshop 2024). Since December 2024 his poems have appeared in several journals and magazines.