i am a were-goat, stalker of

millicent bystanders, chomper

of innocent vegetation.

i follow my prey with stealth

and deception, clip-clopping my

Path Of Doom, my eyes glinting

with the light of veg-lust.

nobody is safe: neither your flowers,

your grass, and least of all your

veg compartments in the fridge...

beware, beware

i rise from my barn like air

and i eat ghaas-phoos somethin' fierce

this is my dining room.

some of the wall is olive green. there are my rajasthani prints on it, a miniature, a framed piece of parchment from an ancient farsi text. there is a chandelier hanging from the relatively low ceiling: it is tarnished iron and brass, with bits of light glittering from the places where i was able to polish through decades of tarnish. it is italian, and abbu lugged it across two continents in his little fiat as a present for his mother. it is mine now. the murano glass hanging from it glitters in the late afternoon light. beneath the chandelier is my table. it is about sixty years old, a lovely rectangle of teak with smooth clean lines. it has a burnished sheen to it, and you can see the lines of the grain swirling up and down the wood. on the table, in the centre, under the chandelier, is a mat: bamboo woven into some purple cloth. on this mat is a round, squat, high brown bowl and a cylindrical green glass vase that is actually a bottle with the top cut off, i think. in these two vessels are roses. the brown pot are two red and one pink rose, and in the green glass there is one orange, one orange-red, one red, one pink, one yellow and three apricot ones. they are in bloom; their petals are curled at the ends, thick beautiful petals nothing like the prissy squished ones flower-wallahs sell, big blooms on sturdy stems. these roses are grown by hand in flowerbeds for the pleasure of their prettiness, not to sell. and they smell like roses should- a hint of sweetness, a clean fresh joy.