Oormila
Vijayakrishnan
Prahlad

Snares don’t always come with jagged jaws. 

Some wear the guise of kind phrases in the mouths of friends 

like     Let’s meet for a coffee 

or       I want to buy your book

                                                   *

Ambush (noun): a surprise attack by people lying in wait in a concealed position.

My favourite scene in The Last Samurai is the one in which Captain Algren is surrounded by a ring of fuming warriors moments before his capture. The glade is dense, scrubbed of all light. A white tiger undulates on a purple-blue flag. Grace. Strength. Honour.

                                                   *

The café scene I am starring in is comical in hindsight. 

Coffee with a paper tiger.

                                                   *

Quills, flaming arrows, stones, catapult into the air. 

A bouquet of hummingbirds discolours the sun. 

                                                   *

Monologue (noun): a long speech by one actor in a play or film.

The lines are fired with froth and fury. I listen at knifepoint.

                                                   *

Zen Master by day. Ravenous Ghost when no one is watching.

                                                   *

I hear beans clatter in the coffee machine. The air conditioning drones. The figure of a white tiger shimmers on a boysenberry flag. I dissociate from my body, surfacing for air in the broken dam of sermons. The café is covered in fallen cherry blossoms.

                                                   *

Tilting at windmills is an artform. When I rise to leave, 

an invisible ball and chain restrain my foot. Yet, I fly.   

Beloved Tiger, I am weightless.

                                                   *

I doom scroll on the train ride home. A friend’s post comes up with a series of hummingbird photos. Its body slumps against his Mr. Bean coffee cup on the hot sidewalk – an exhausted bead of iridescent feathers. My friend’s fingers are intertwined like a wicker basket. His palms are pink with kindness. Rescue is on the way. 

                                                   *

The graffiti is rude. I catch only a word or two as it whizzes by.

I fill the blanks in with my own wounds.

                                                   *

“I like to think he may have at last found some small measure of peace, that we all seek, and few of us ever find.”  ~ The Last Samurai

                                                   *

The hummingbird in my friend’s photos survives.