Soul Patch by Subhankar Das

I was at a poetry reading.

My name was announced

and I got up and moved towards the stage.

Then all of a sudden

This short man hair thinning

groped up on stage and started reading.

For a few seconds me and the guy who was conducting

did not know what to do.

Then of course he was stopped

in the middle of his poem

and was asked who he was?

He said he was me.

My god a con selfie I thought.

Still he was allowed to finish his poem

before I took over

and thankfully also collected the cheque

which I almost missed.



Today I get a long distance phone call

congratulating me for a poem

in a commercial magazine

which I never wrote.



Now how am I to prove to my readers

that this is not the big man with long hairs

with a soul patch to go with.



Everyone appreciates the patch

but nobody looks for the soul

as if it did not exist.