Substitute

Ashish Kumar Singh

It’s winter, and my only comfort 
lies in the lies I tell my mother.

When she asks where have I been, 
I tell her With a friend, casting

every hand that ever touched me 
in the same mold. Just the other night,

a man called me by a different name, 
making me the love he wished for 

but never had. What does it matter 
whose face we kiss in the dark. 

In maths, we were taught to substitute 
what we wanted for something else— 

a lesson I learned well. After dinner, 
my mother kisses me, saying You look 

starved, and oh, how I want to tell her 
how right she is. The body, Mother, 

never got what it wanted—only 
what it could take.

 

About the writer

Photo by Ashish Kumar Singh

Ashish Kumar Singh (he/him) is a queer Indian poet whose work has appeared in Passages North, Chestnut Review, Fourteen Poems, Foglifter, Banshee and elsewhere. Currently, he serves as an editorial assistant at Visual Verse and a poetry reader at ANMLY.