Shoot it if it rhymes

 Wait 

The old worn tablecloth at Koshy’s 

also waits for Rohini Venkatesh Malur. 

The red squares - 

bleached by years, 

and fluorescent light 

and the weight of elbows of varying girth 

and tender coconut soup (no longer served here) 

and meandering conversations 

and silences 

and mobile radiation 

and causes 

and theories 

and insinuations - 

are now a bleating shade of pink. 

On the neighbour’s laptop, one reads, 

‘Drones will soon deliver packages’. 

Everyone waits.