Eyebrows by Aditya Shankar

On a night when I cook fish for dinner,
my eyebrow grows fins and slips away
from our hollow midnight into a tear
mistaken for an ocean – alone in bed
and the diner, alone while together in
a movie theatre, an escape is always
on the card for the ignored. I see how
booze works on you, a slow rising
tempest keen to flood my shores, as
you turn your brow into a fishing boat
hungry for its prey, and I the eternal
optimist, swimming in a sandwich:
between days of thankless house-
hold chores.


Aditya Shankar is an Indian English poet living in Bangalore, and his work has been published in Shot Glass Journal, Asiawrites, Munyori, The Pyramid, Poetry Chain, Chandrabhaga, Meadowland Review, CHEST, and Vox Humana among others. His poetry collection Party Poopers is forthcoming.