Ode to a pineapple

Look at the cloak of secrecy, what might hide within the grey-green spires.

- NITHYA MARIAM JOHN

In the blueprint of an assault, countless flowers have fused into one, the dovetailing whorls a labyrinth for seekers.

Covet this wild crown; ignore its waxy battlements.

Snub the pricks in your quest, getting closer to the truth.

Armed with strange love, cut through its armour, everything that restrains change.

Shed of weight, it weeps gently, the air suffused with fermenting sweetness.

Cut further along its flanks, bind in diagonal its many eyes, one by one.

Sightless, it yields under a resolute sun—observe the wedges lined with tiny honeytraps, prepare for a counter-charge on your senses.

— Soni Somarajan

titching his memories into a collection of sixty-four poems titled First Contact, Soni Somarajan writes, ‘No acid build,/ just the kick of fleeting feet. / I almost fly. / Wait. / I can’t catch up —/whispers my wheelchair.’

These lines are from his