A Personal Dog

for Vivek Narayanan

it isn't matter

isn't doesn't matter

does it compared

with what shan't

have known your

lines are all

lines of approach

this dog's eyelids

this delhi dog's

intentional eyelids, this

doorway dog, this

dog fellating beggars

delhi exuding matter

nictitation cannot extrude

America to england

the third nictitating

poetry is over

eyelid cannot eject

America to england

large foreign bodies

poetry is over

over and out

surgery rarely happens

over and ours

dogs aren't loved

over here, here!

sufficiently foreign bodies

remain requiring incision

mind yourself it

happened before you

as you go

you're nothing cold

sunshine practised apprehension

Source: Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet Press, Ltd., 2016)