What will suffice for a true-love knot? Even the rain? But he who has bought grief’s lottery, bought even the rain. ~ Agha Shahid Ali

Syllables lost. Countries crossed. A drought of no, no and not. My hands sift through the filigreed hours for your word knot.

Stillness and silence after the storm. On the curtains a draught Of shadows. Each breath a bucket seeking water from your ghat.

What was it that slipped so quickly through my fingers, I forgot. Was it time? Was it the heart, partitioned by a cast of fate’s lot?

Cancer dust. Shellfire. Minefield. Barbed wire. Hail of lead-shot. From my interior lands on fire arrive messages, in dash and dot.

I can’t read; blinded by morning’s mirrors that last night’s rain has wrought. Nor can I write, for your sun has eclipsed even my landscape of thought