Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Lion
- Entomological Specimens
- Practising Your Skills
- Insomniac
- Taster
- What Every Girl Should Know Before Marriage
- Bad Day in the Office
- You Are Not
- The Gold Bangles
- My Mother's Hair
- ‘Jesus Saves’
- Ticking
- On Ellington Road
- Cousin Migrant
- The Daughters
- Different Principles of Enclosure
- Day Ghost
- This Morning
- The Bird
- Almost September
- Phone Call on a Train Journey
- Small Hands
- In the Coroner's Office
- April
- 18th of November
- Notes Towards an Elegy
- The Urn
- The Rain That Began Elsewhere
- Gloves
- My Father Wants to be a Rooftop Railway Surfer
- Ghazal
- Ghazal
- Ode to a Pomegranate
- Bulbul
- Parvati Waits for the Return of Shiva, After the Slaying of Ganesh
- Lost Poem
- Large and Imprecise Baby
- Wireman
- Barbule
- The Found Thing
- Woman at Window
- Mr Beeharry's Marriage Bureau
- Mrs M Unravels
- Hummingbird
- Ballad of the Small-boned Daughter
- Acknowledgments
Taster
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- The Lion
- Entomological Specimens
- Practising Your Skills
- Insomniac
- Taster
- What Every Girl Should Know Before Marriage
- Bad Day in the Office
- You Are Not
- The Gold Bangles
- My Mother's Hair
- ‘Jesus Saves’
- Ticking
- On Ellington Road
- Cousin Migrant
- The Daughters
- Different Principles of Enclosure
- Day Ghost
- This Morning
- The Bird
- Almost September
- Phone Call on a Train Journey
- Small Hands
- In the Coroner's Office
- April
- 18th of November
- Notes Towards an Elegy
- The Urn
- The Rain That Began Elsewhere
- Gloves
- My Father Wants to be a Rooftop Railway Surfer
- Ghazal
- Ghazal
- Ode to a Pomegranate
- Bulbul
- Parvati Waits for the Return of Shiva, After the Slaying of Ganesh
- Lost Poem
- Large and Imprecise Baby
- Wireman
- Barbule
- The Found Thing
- Woman at Window
- Mr Beeharry's Marriage Bureau
- Mrs M Unravels
- Hummingbird
- Ballad of the Small-boned Daughter
- Acknowledgments
Summary
I taste it because it might taste of honey. I taste it because my brain is a hive. I taste it because I'm properly assimilated. I taste it because I was an only child and refused to share the oranges in the playground. I taste it because I never travelled. I taste it because I've travelled to the frozen tundra of the Northern Arctic. I taste it because of the lack, I taste it because of the surplus. I taste it because Auntie Naveen's best friend tasted it and she never looked back. I taste it because I pity it (to some degree). I taste it because it smells nice. I taste it because of shavings of bones on the wind. I taste it because it might be like the first time (though it's never like the first time).I taste it because I'm perfumed, shameless, godless. I taste it because I'm curious, because of its integrity, its shape, its asking to be tasted. I taste it because I'm scared. I taste it because I don't want to be scared anymore. I taste it because I'm gagging on all the departures. I taste it because of salt. I taste it because nothing is as holy as intimacy because I want it to purr and stink inside me. I taste it because I'm on a civilising mission. I taste it because of Japan. I taste it because I miss the children. I taste it because I tilted the baby last night, gave her a name and forgot it. I taste it because I'm losing my verbs. I taste it because this morning, I saw the first crocus push through the earth and it was yellow. With my tongue I taste it.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Small Hands , pp. 5Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2015