On our way to the end of the world my father asks me to write a joyful poem

karan kapoor

I do not believe. In cars I throw. Up.

Gut. Knotted like a fishnet. Dancing

with salmon. My father who. Can cast.

A hook into. The sky and catch.

The clouds I want. To teleport.

He orders I. Breathe. Count three.

Two. Seven. Five. When we.

Arrive I cradle. My head

in between. My knees I hurt for.

Home. Ogle. Strangers hunt.

For scars in their. Eyes I find.

Nothing. To sing. There is.

Only joy. I do not understand.

So I move. To the marriage.

Of letters. In sardined. Streets

amid. Sizzle and glow. Of neon.

Selling water. Beside the river

I see. A fish. With a fork. Through

its eye. A bird turned. Inside

out. The sky must. Hate us.

It sees. Everything we do.

I return. To him dizzy

with blue. Smoke. Yellow

fever. The brine of black.

Words. He orders I seize.

The rain. In my wallet.

Amass a harvest. Vast

enough for the end. Of

the world so withered.

Is my skeleton. My need.

To please. Him is absolute.

Someday. I’d have written.

All I have. Ever wished

to say. Silence will run.

Through. Me as invisible.

As a bowl. Of milk

offered. To the ocean.

Karan Kapoor is a poet from New Delhi, India. They have been awarded or placed for the James Hearst Poetry Prize, Frontier Global Poetry Prize, Ledbury Poetry Prize, Red Wheelbarrow Prize, and BLR Prize among others. Their manuscript A Condensed History of My Father’s Addiction was a finalist for the Iron Horse Literary Review chapbook prize, and Portrait of the Alcoholic as a Father a semi-finalist for the Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize. Their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in AGNI, North American Review, Los Angeles Review, Colorado Review, Rattle, Arts & Letters, and elsewhere. They’re an MFA candidate at Virginia Tech. You can find them at: karankapoor.co.in