Your joy is your sorrow unmasked ~ A Chinese Fortune Cookie, June 13, 2005

Darling, I when place My blistered heart blown up With the noise of words, And wearing in a mask Of unreasoned sadness In your warm hands,

You take it as if it were The red balloon of your Childhood (still so alive!), And then float it high up On the string of time, with Me laughing in delight!

(After Tennessee Williams)

Evening light is shining through The rain, and is not going away. Don’t get up. You don’t have to Leave if you wish to, with me, stay.

I give you few fine feathers in a jar (To brush off old pain from your hair) And dandelions, those fortunetellers Of roads, their heads nodding in the air.

I lay my head on the table as you pour tea, And watch a starling move on your arm. “Dark birthmark, what is your secret?” I ask, touching skin, familiar and warm.

A Whip-poor-will seems to cry “O, Sadness Has no end, happiness does.” So shrill A song for so pleasant a time, when even My erratic heart, always desirous, is still.

How soon ends another day! For now stay. Forever stay!

In that season of heat, After the New Year festival had Pressed its face to the window And watched us as we drank to the hilt The brew of neem bud and flower, The koel was wooing some comely Female all afternoon (I joined it With my raucous song),

I went to the mango market Where everything was a gradation Of green leaf and yellow sun, Where voices rise to a high Pitch in thirst, as if everyone was Singing an impatient raga To tardy monsoon rain, Haggling on the price of each, As if entire satisfaction depended On shelling out a penny less,

And came home with a dozen Of the finest, my fingers smelling Of pulp and juice, a slight tangy Taste of salt, of sweat. And you rose From late afternoon sleep (nothing Better can be done in that heat), Your eyes heavy, lips in that delicious Semi-pout, and reached out to The proffered bowl, and bit into one.

After many summers, I now remember This moment exactly as it happened then: How the yellow juice squirted down Your throat, down your chin, and over My white kurta as I reached out To take you; my tongue was colored Yellow, the nectar of distilled desire Spilt over our bodies like sheet lighting, And in between pauses as you tore The pulp from the seed, I tore it from Your mouth. And then emptied, silence.

I now hold that seed (the only thing remaining, The final residue of loving) in my sweaty hands.