Aubade

It’s Saturday, but you haven’t slept in, 

Your side of the bed still warm. 

My hangover is like a smashed windscreen. 

I hear a repeated noise down the corridor. 

One surface determinedly rubs another. 

While asleep, I picked my lip ‘til it bled. 

A side effect of the medication. 

Like the gravid – if sledgehammer obvious – nightmare. 

Your body walks in, completely naked. 

This is how you prefer to clean the bathroom. 

And though my plan was for inertia. 

I understand today where to redeem the time. 

The sound of the curtains yanked apart. 

Is the morning clearing its throat. 

First published in 'The Million-petalled Flower of Being Here', Bloodaxe Books, 2019.

Vidyan Ravinthiran is a poet, critic and scholar from the UK. He is known for his range of work exploring his Sri Lankan Tamil ...

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