Dr. Arya Gopi is a bilingual poet, translator, and academic from Kerala, India. She serves as Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English at The Zamorin's Guruvayurappan College, University of Calicut. Author of several acclaimed Malayalam and English poetry collections, including One Hundred Lines of Discords, her work has appeared in journals such as Guernica, World Literature Today, Indian Literature, and Teesta Review. Recipient of numerous national and international literary honors, she has represented Malayalam literature at major festivals and was a Resident Fellow at the 2025 Poetic Frequencies Residency, Heidelberg UNESCO Creative Cities, Germany.

Dr. Arya Gopi

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Porosity

The kettle hums. Steam curls like smoke from a candle no one lit.
A cup clinks against another cup—tiny collision of bones.
The cat watches, tail twitching.
Morning light drags itself across the wall.
I count the shadows, one, two, three...
A spoon trembles in my hand.
I touch the ledger. The ink smears under my fingers.
A coin falls from the jar; it rolls across the tiles, stops, and waits.
Outside, the wind lifts the corner of a curtain.
I close my eyes. The world presses against the bones of my face.
Time seeps in through the cracks of doors.
I breathe it anyway.