by Sambhu Ramachandran
A squirrel was caught
in an electric fence.
The smell of charred flesh
as of a barbecue full-swing in hell
coated the air when we
moved in from the meadow’s edge.
A swarm of flies whirred
over its furry tail,
limp upon the grass.
A surge of current, perhaps,
we surmised and sighed—
Thank God, it wasn’t a man.
But there was a hole in the fence
through which we knew a wild boar
had slipped. A clump of bristly hairs
was left like an afterthought in the mesh.
A shattered kingdom of domes,
the melons lay flushed with morning glow.
What escapes becomes history,
what gets caught footnote.
The sun’s acetylene torch rent
a hole in the sky big enough
for our hubris to slip through.
Sambhu Ramachandran is a bilingual poet, translator, short story writer, and academic from Kerala, India. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S. College, Pandalam. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Another Chicago Magazine, Neon & Smoke, The Tiger Moth Review, Plants and Poetry Journal, Qafiyah Review, The Alexander Review, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Wild Court, Madras Courier, The Alipore Post, Muse India, Setu, The Chakkar, Ethos Literary Journal, Every Body Magazine, and Sextet, among others. You can reach out to him on Instagram: @sambhuramachandran