Nothing Against Swag
Satya Dash
The newspaper headline made it clear—
you don’t have to be sober to save
a life—the story of an intoxicated man
booking an Uber to a rehabilitation center
for the sole passenger: a dying goldfinch. By ways of induction
I didn’t know were possible, I found
myself wishing for a rescue of similar proportions—
sawdust in my shy mouth, diagonal flurries
of blustery wind knocking my running face like a punching bag,
out of me rose a river of blue vomit
littered with golden stars and vintage trinkets
making a profane sludge that flared amber
and settled its bright dung right in front
the door of my future father-in-law’s
apartment. Determined to turn embarrassment
into bewilderment, I pretended to lie
down, like only a creature in a pool of its own suffering
can. The performance of stupor, difficult
to enjoy unless one really fell asleep. If my conscious
slumped over in this immersion, I don’t
know. In the hospital, the softest part of my body suffered
the injection of a hypodermic needle. In a more
desirable state, the real question: why always subject softness
to such piercing impact? Anaesthetized, my throaty
squawk: a roomy drawl. The circumstances
unpinnable, the dates of adversity always had
the year missing. The day of my bachelor party, I woke
up in a Moroccan lounge. Asked to improvise
a belly dance before I had even brushed my teeth,
I lifted the veil off my face to apply some strawberry
lip balm. The dense crowd of mannequins sizzled and spat
a series of heavy metal laughs. Sensing
a rare chance for resonance, I hitched my cackle to the same
pitch. The floorboards creaked with giggly
pleasure, as beside me an urn toppled. I hardly flinched
when it rolled over to my bare feet.
Satya Dash is the recipient of the 2020 Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2020 Broken River Prize. His poems appear in The Boiler, Anomaly, Chestnut Review, Rhino Poetry, Cincinnati Review, and Diagram, among others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator. He has been nominated previously for Pushcart, Best of the Net and Best New Poets. He grew up in Cuttack and now lives in Bangalore, India. He tweets at: @satya043