The Ticket

From the fringe I never had to squint
at the fluctuations, plotzing spoke up
for me. Offbeat patterns find no patrons.
Such an ordinary line but if it cuffed
your course you may think otherwise.
Stains often announce other sweeps.
One needs no zetetic formulations to
follow this. Tag along the windings.

**

Wishers

I was aiming to construct a universe without conditionalities
but merchants have a unique way of allowing merchandise
and its marrow to intervene. In such a setting, the thronged
inbox announces a transoceanic email from niece. My birth-
day twin is three, his brother two years older.

On their cot clad in nightwear they sing the natal day song
on camera. A foliaceous mounting behind them beetling
the world map adds another bend to background score. In
sleety climes this will quieten me.

**

Relay

Why do you shade your inner shrine?
My translator asks in a buddy-buddy
one-on-one. Direct paths are hardest
to handle, I tell myself.

In a flush of child-like avidity: I ask
him to cross-examine: put me through
the wringer. Every question needn’t
be cashed, he soothes me.

---

Sanjeev Sethi is published in over 25 countries. He has more than 1,200 poems printed or posted in venues around the world. Wrappings in Bespoke, was the winner of Full Fat Collection Competition-Deux organized by the Hedgehog Poetry Press UK. It’s his fourth book. It will be issued in 2020. He lives in Mumbai, India.