Poetry 2016 Featured Akshaya Pawaskar

Starfish and I

I still wonder whether starfish
Washed up the shores are
Fallen stars snuffed out by brine.
They fit in the cradle of palm
Bristly yet riveting until
They sting you back to prosaic.
You wouldn’t know they fear
For life too, that instinct
of flight, fight, freeze or fawn.
As you haven’t walked in their
Limbs, until they shed
Them and wait for its Phantom.
Just as we don’t know so much
Of our very own bodies
And souls, we tumbled stars.
We evert our hearts out, suck up
All that we thrive on, love.
Until stomached by sharks, blight.
We pull out of the jar, a January
A February and so on till
Emptiness breeds thick like slime.
We keep crunching numbers but
They don’t diminish, they
Just add up, we call it synergistic.
And we are just mere curios for
Posterity, an odd starfish
On someone’s mantelpiece.