The Lonesome Lunch – Puneet Dutt

The Lonesome Lunch

In the gut of the bottom floor staff room
is the guttural and incessant electric buzz of loneliness digesting.

The giggle of pipes inside
the underground walls
            pop –
ping –
the pinching beep and fuzzy hum of the microwave
yawning, cold things to hot,
and the long grey shadows, shadows,
shadows…splash onto everything with simian fingers, like
ghosts the colour of April sky.

Come close…
Even machines like us have spirits decaying.
We live for touch.

Boiler farts and engine hiss, water cooler burps,
and bottle tips pointing like nipples stiff from chill.
A naked Christmas tree loiters, and the shelf
is still void of books.
And there!
                In whispers like night insects zithering, from the trash,
                the spent skins of blood oranges call out, speaking the language of prehistoric desire.

                It is I! The Sleepy-eyed Lonely,
                that makes you ache at noon.

Puneet is a Special Projects Coordinator at Ryerson University. She is training for the marathon, and when she’s not working or training, she’s tasting the words of great poets on her tongue. Reading and writing are her two greatest hobbies.