Beach Ride by Pitambar Naik

While on a ride along the Juhu Beach

you're                       bickering for

              a rainbow-clad propensity  

mixed with the glitz of chandeliers.

In the body of a wind

the ridge of the backbone of a shark

a dandelion pinpricks, and the

residue of our previous life yearns   

with   a nose ring of a new season

a nauseating punctuation fiddles with

the red lilies of a squint ecstasy    

            a new weather oozes  into

the lungs of the button mushrooms.

You're not a           belligerent baby         

when the                  trees remove

their leaves             and birdsongs

you feel the               contraction

across the                   dining table

last month's tentative promise

which was tempting the chemistry          

              of an adolescent Buddha

smiles to merge in the menagerie.

At the end we go static

to explore a crowd of blue moist    

             and the beach doesn't end 

those sardines brush with meekness

and behave                    almost like

the mannequins of our absence.     

---

Pitambar Naik has a book of poetry: The Anatomy of Solitude (Hawakal). He’s a poetry/fiction reader for Remington Review and poetry editor for Minute Magazine. His work appears or forthcoming in Packingtown Review, The Indian Quarterly, New Contrast, The Ekphrastic Review, Ghost City Review, Eunoia Review, Glass Poetry, Cha Literary Journal, Vayavya, Charge Magazine, The World Belongs To Us HarperCollins India, among others. He grew up in Odisha, India.