Two Poems by Neetha Kunaratnam

The Mirror

The birdie’s fighting itself!
they cry, as you rush out,
both kids all eyes and awe

as the starling defends
its patch from the doppelgänger
that’s ghosted into sight.

Its beak hammers
cracks into the glass like
an appalling metronome,

as you shepherd the kids inside,
to shield them from
this suicide by reflection.

Sunlight stuns the aggressor
into a dazed sort of cognition,
as you snatch away its adversary.

Restoring to its kingdom
the logic of footprint, scent
and song, you lean the old mirror

against the kitchen wall, beneath
its spotless successor. Outside,
the speckled bird shakes a worm free.

Bathing

was it mum or dad who taught me
to wash between the legs soap hard
and let water winking sunset cling drip
drop slow meniscus from wrinkled balls

did I perhaps on reflection teach myself
to bathe hurrying frothy palms
over lines of sweat the yin of fingers
gracing the yang of skin taut on bone

how many years self-serving did I never
know this intimate matter of being locked
into a lover lush rush of river
biceps clamped into armpits how many times

does Time sieve yours regretfully never learning
perhaps closeness that might come
incarnating a water God o two-toned Vishnu
all four arms ready to sponge

Neetha Kunaratnam’s first collection, Just Because, was published by Smokestack Books in 2018 and was highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2019. A second collection will be published by Blue Diode Press in 2023.