A Day Well Spent
by Adila Kabeer
A coffee pot on the table.
Besides, cups and saucers
inviting warmth,
inviting habit.
An ant avoids the porcelain.
leans toward a fallen drop—
black,
Unsweetened.
I feel generous.
I spill sugar on the table.
‘They’ stare—
puzzled, polite.
I am, after all,
the guest of honour.
Silence is policy.
I lift the ant
and place it back
into the coffee—
now sweet.
It shrinks.
It cannot drink.
What else is left
for a creature
that chooses to die
inside its favourite fluid?
The stare
presses the back of my head.
I feel good.
A day
well spent!
Adila A. Kabeer is a poet, researcher, and educator from Kerala. She has published three poetry collections and is a recipient of the Madhavikkutty Puraskaram along with several other literary awards. A childist feminist and educationalist, she works at the intersections of literature, cinema, childhood studies, and critical pedagogy, while continuing to write poetry rooted in care, resistance, and everyday life.