Magic
By Sambhu Ramachandran
You say you there is no
magic or witchcraft,
that it’s all flimflam.
But I refuse to believe
it’s just your sleight of hand
that pulls long-eared rabbits
​
of rapture out of the top hat
of my secret skin.
How you saw me in half
with a sharp-edged smile
and join me back
with the glue of another.
Yet, the best of your tricks
is the vanishing act
where your eyes dart me a sidelong glance—
abracadabra—
and I disappear
just like that.
Sambhu Ramachandran is a bilingual poet, translator, and academic from Kayamkulam, Kerala who turns to poetry as a means of interpreting the chaos of life and making it both bearable and beautiful in its transience. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S. College, Pandalam. His poems have been repeatedly anthologized in The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English. They have also appeared in The Bombay Literary Magazine (TBLM), Wild Court, Madras Courier, The Alipore Post, Muse India, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Setu, and The Chakkar, among others.