The Shirt Still Doesn’t Fit

By P. S. Surya Srinivas

I found it behind your old white shirts,
folded twice,
still had a bus ticket in the pocket.
Smelled of coconut oil and Liril soap.

You folded your veshti four times.
Counted coins into piles:
one for bus fare,
one for exact change.
You tapped the tube light twice to check it was dead.

She knew your silence before it entered the room.
Pulihora after Eenadu,
ceiling fan just right.
She carried your quiet like unpaid bills.

I told you I’d never be like you.
A clerk in 2012 with starched shirts and tired hands.
I threw my guitar strap at the wall.
You turned off the gas mid-sentence.
Scraped burnt dal like nothing happened.

That night I heard you through the bathroom door.
Not crying.
Just small sounds
like air being pressed out of something.

I wanted to knock.
I went to my room instead.

Inside the cuff,
blue thread:
‘Surya.’
Your handwriting on a receipt tucked inside:
“For interview. Size 40.”
The job I never applied for.

I wore it today.
Still loose at the shoulders.
Still chokes me.

I’m
not giving it away.