Sampurna Chattarji: No inclination
It isn’t unusual, some mornings, to find a see-through frog sitting before me, her belly pregnant with doubts the shape of eggs. Eggs like little stones, eggs with black marks on them, like the eyes of tiger prawns on the table. I quail before their pointed protuberant gaze, I cannot swallow. I have begun talking to the frog. That’s how low things have sunk. It repulses me, it reminds me of a slimeball, the kind children play with, if I pick it up and throw it at the wall, it will stick, not a single egg will break. Jelly legs needn’t always mean fear. In its diaphanous coat the gelatinous frog is vain. Even in this condition, it hasn’t forgotten to paint all its twelve toes orange. It preens under the yellow line on its back, a thick rich drip from a brush with the limits of visibility. I see the lime green of my table through its body. It repulses me but the more I look at it the more I want to keep looking. I always wanted x-ray vision. Now I have it. I wait for the doubts to be laid to rest, the lies to hatch into certainties. I have no inclination to kiss you. What would I do with a pregnant princess on my hands? If I dip my finger in you, would you wobble? Lost specie, deviating from the norm, the only thing beautiful about you are your heavy lidded eyes. I am waiting for you to look up and see through me.