From Matchbox
Matchbox – November ’23
Release
November 29, 2023
On a rainy evening, returning home.
Light wearied of its rectilinear paths
leaps off the lamp posts, spreads
over the street, wallowing in
the footsteps of strangers.
The vehicles’ headlights stretched
like a pair of hands
running to catch the rain
falling as fireflies
on the windshields.
The twin wipers swatting them away
like Sisyphus chases after his rocks.
Imagine them happy
whispers a friend, diffusing
into the heart
the melancholy of the rain.
Imagining them happy
I returned home
Drunk, tired
of the weight
I slept
while the rain outside
poured the light,
untethering from the sources
over my window
flashing
to let itself in.
The darkness in the room
with each flash of light
deepens,
shoos light away.
📖
PART OF A COLLECTIONThe Ornaments of Silence
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Tabish Nawaz
Tabish Nawaz teaches Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. He has recently published his first short story collection Opening Clouds, Fermented Rain (Hawakal). His poems, essays and short stories have been published in The Critical Flame, Shimmer Spring Anthology, Ethos Literary Journal, The Punch Magazine, The Conversation, Indian Review, The Bangalore Review, Flash Fiction Magazine among other venues.