Pottu / Dot

a little red dot is
a laser pointer
a moving target
a danger button
a recorder button
a pottu
a pimple
a popstar
a rash
a makaan orredi?
a smile of a query unconcerned with whether
it was mealtime
a panic room
a piercing
pain
pinpointing
a period
of uncertainty asking
why can’t I question what I love?
why can’t I love what I question?
a third eye for an eye
on the prize
an accessory to murder
of crows on an angsana
a birdcall
flitting across
sky
catcalling worms
a discreet witness
to bargain basement love stories
screaming
onwards and up yours
a cockroach friend scurrying over unwashed masses
murmuring
this boy does not know anything
such a waste
thinks he is headlight
when he is just deer
a song that goes
this is
home?
is this
home?
is this
a home?
this is
a home?
what home
is this?

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

  

“Singapore, my adopted home of more than two decades, is often called the ‘Little Red Dot’—a reference to its appearance on maps as a tiny scarlet speck. A ‘pottu’ is also a little (often red) dot worn on a Tamil woman’s forehead. Connecting these dots gave rise to feelings of missing home while being in one, imposter syndrome, hunger, nausea, performance anxiety, gratitude, and a kind of belonging to longing—a longing that I hope the reader feels for an object of their desire.”
—Shivram Gopinath