A hungry child stands at a shop window, and in thirteen short lines Balachandran V turns that ordinary sight into a hard question: what happens when help depends entirely on someone else's mood? The poem is signed from Trivandrum in November 2015, but nothing in the text needs more context than that. The window could belong to a sweet shop or a bakery in any city, and the poem is stronger for being so general.
The first thing to notice is that the poem begins with "Like". It opens with a comparison but never says what is being compared. The first sentence has no main verb at all, and only the word "possibilities" comes close to an answer. The grammar hangs in the air much as the child hangs outside the glass, always waiting for something that might arrive. The poem is also written in free verse, with no rhyme and lines of uneven length. It reads like a thought spoken aloud and abandoned halfway. The dashes at the ends of lines ("Straight at him –", "the pest –", "buy one –") work like held breaths. And the lone "And" on its own line is a small, deliberate pause before the bitterest possibility arrives.
Those possibilities are the heart of the poem, and each one is introduced with "Or". The first is the child's own fantasy, and it is the most touching. He imagines that if he stares long enough "the glasses would melt", and the sweets inside would "come marching out / Straight at him". The verb "marching" turns the goodies into a small army, obedient and purposeful, with the child suddenly the one being served. The hard g sounds of "Gazing", "goodies" and "glass" press close together in the first two lines, as if the child's eyes were pushed against the pane. It is also telling that his daydream involves no people. The sweets come to him themselves, perhaps because every human route to food turns out to be complicated.
The next two possibilities show why. The shopkeeper might give from pity, "Or to get rid of the pest". The poem lets generosity and irritation sit in the same line and refuses to tell us which one wins. Then comes the "kind heart", whose kindness is quickly undercut. This person buys a sweet and "throw[s] it" at the child, "ridding himself of the guilt". The verb matters. Nobody hands the child anything. The sweet is thrown, as one might throw a scrap to an animal, and the gesture is done for the giver's relief, not the receiver's dignity. The poem never says the giver is cruel. It suggests something more uncomfortable, that a gift can be partly a purchase, with the buyer paying to feel better.
That is where the title becomes pointed. A morsel is a small, grudging bite, and "love" is a large word to attach to it. The title seems to ask whether what the child receives, if he receives anything, deserves the name. It may be love, or it may be pity, annoyance or guilt wearing love's clothes.
The final two lines turn the poem's central irony on its head. "The possibilities are many / For the beggar who cannot choose…" At first it sounds like good news, but every possibility belongs to someone else. The shopkeeper decides, the passer-by decides, and the child's only role is to wait and be grateful. The old saying "beggars can't be choosers" is quietly echoed here. The poem takes the proverb's casual shrug and makes it sound like a verdict. The closing ellipsis refuses to tidy things up, leaving the child as unresolved at the end as he was at the start.
The poem matters because it moves the reader's attention. It begins with the child's gaze, drifts through the minds of the people who might help him, and ends by returning to him, now stripped of any power. Along the way it asks readers to look at their own motives. Anyone who has ever given a coin partly to feel better will recognise the "kind heart" in the middle of the poem. The language is plain, the image is small, and the poem never raises its voice. Its quiet is what makes it hard to forget.