EXPLETIVE
The word arrives in my inbox
screaming,
steam rising from its sizzling,
alone,
answering
a simple question.
May I send you a poem?
or simply
May I?
An all-caps no.
You do wield
your expletives
well.
But I do too.
I reply —
Thank you.
Jyotish Chalil Gopinathan is a nephrologist residing in Kozhikode, India. His poems have been published in several online journals including Muse India, Borderless Journal, Poems India, Madras Courier, The Punch Magazine, Annals of Internal Medicine, Ethos Literary Journal, Plato’s Cave Online, and The Chakkar. In August 2025 Hawakal published his second collection of poems, Almanac of the Sickle Moon.
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