The Coffee Table 3 Poem by Prathibha Nandakumar

Nearer than this, can be death.

My hands lie on the coffee table and yours
next to it and we are not grouping
for each other.

The inexplicable grasped through
sips of coffee washed down the
scorching gullet gives a lurch.
Yet the mind refuses to accept.
Loss is an abstract feeling.
You do not loose what you never owned.
Un recognised when it comes back
Turn tables at it.
You have finally mastered the art of
waking up to lullabies.

The firefly with burnt wings
commits Harakiri.
They never taught me the safe distance.

The coffee table stands testimony
to the unsaid.

To die for love has been an age old obsession.
To live is the new age discovery.