Nothing is Missing
Arranged beauty, a vanishing self. Silent guns in the corner reveal an…
Read more →✨ LATEST ISSUE •
From Matchbox
Matchbox – May ’26
City Without Water
War's end brings desert thirst, strange milk rites. A bloody kiss ignites visceral, explosive transformation.
May 28, 2026
The war has ended,
but there is no water in my desert city—
everyone carries milk in clay pots for the gods.
The thick syrupy scent arouses me
filling my body with strange cravings,
as if I have arrived somewhere unfamiliar
perhaps hostile.
Everything after war feels like intoxication.
like a steamy religious procession.
“Is this real or fictional?” I ask.
she does not answer
I stammer again—she knows
I have difficulty with speech.
She says, “let me save you from your thirst”.
I kiss her thick bleeding lips,
and suddenly I begin to explode like fat watermelons.
📖
PART OF A COLLECTIONThe Night, a Naked Knife and 4 other poems
View Full Collection →
Ashwani Kumar
Ashwani Kumar is a poet, author and academic in Mumbai. Widely published, anthologised and translated into several Indian languages, his poetry volumes include ‘My Grandfather’s Imaginary Typewriter’, ‘Banaras and the Other’ and ‘Architecture of Alphabets’. Recently, he has published “Rivers Going Home” (Red River)- a major anthology of Indian poetry. He is author of the acclaimed non-fiction ‘Community Warriors” (Anthem Press), and one of the chief editors of ‘Global Civil Society’ at London School of Economics. He is also cofounder of Indian Novels Collective, an initiative to popularise translation of classic novels of Indian languages. In leisure, he writes a book column in the Financial Express.