(For Adam Zagajewski)

I lean forward in my chair And close my eyes, as if I were sitting in a pew, and Listen closely to the songs Made by this palmist with An accent, for these times.

He sings of having seen much: The face of Caravaggio’s crucified Christ, roofless temples in Sicily, Lonely subways of great cities Between which he had ceaselessly Traveled in trains with non talking Compartments, seeking balance, After being exiled from those Still sweet, still distinct, long streets Of his youth. He sings of friends Who had sailed away on yachts, Leaving testimonies behind them Of sins and signs they have seen, And joy felt, and suffering endured.

As he concludes, he signs Of how and why we should praise The mutilated world. And somewhere behind me, In the audience, just then, A baby begins to cry, as if In complete understanding.

We cross the street and walk towards the café, you, Ganesh, and me. I don’t know what to tell you, given that perhaps I might never see you again. I know this even if we have had said to each other previously that we would meet often, flights are cheap, time is available aplenty, and all of us are still quite young.

I ask you if you will want to eat a dosa, and drink some filter coffee with us, since we won’t be meeting again soon. My ticket out is for Tuesday, this is Sunday, tomorrow on a Monday you have a wedding to attend, yours, and this is too complex, you keep saying something about being in town on Wednesday, you are mumbling, and Ganesh interjects, oh then we can put this idiot’s ticket on hold, he can leave next week, I can leave next week too.

Come on let us go eat something. I am hungry. I haven’t eaten anything since morning. One doesn’t know if he is being serious or joking. My heart seems to be almost breaking, and he wants to eat, and you have to leave, people are waiting, the train to the suburbs is whistling on Platform number four, you are climbing up the stairs of the over bridge to go across the tracks, and from under a dirty canvas awning, Ganesh and me are watching you or your form disappear, being cut diagonally, as it keeps climbing.

I am shouting, and waving. Are these tears falling? How did it grow so light here, in the night? Was I dreaming? Where am I now? Startled in my bed or weeping in those distant cities, where it now seems there is neither you nor Ganesh waiting for me? Was this a sign, a prophesy, or rather a confirmation of how things already are? I am writing, what can I write, that it is a Saturday in spring, that light is falling from the windows at the foot of my bed, that I am approaching thirty, and these days I often feel like dying, because somewhere, in some cities, I am already dead?

A day like any other Early spring day. After a few days of

Unseasonal snow, today The sun took off its winter Mittens, the blue sky is

Dreamy when I look up Standing under magnolia Branches heavy with blossoms.

Everything is as it should be, The flickering breeze, nodding Daffodils, children walking

Puppies, derrieres of ladies Bent over in their gardens. Yet this morning, grandmother –

I played in her yard once, Trampled her marigolds and Swung from her guava trees,

Turned up, hundred and one Years old, hair all gone, skull Shrunk to the dimensions of

A womb, her gravelling voice Yelling at me in mock anger and Summoning me from my game.

So on this day like any other, I am counting the years since She has been gone.