[A] Morning alarm

I wake up to a booming
sound – anybody there?
	Anybody there,

in the dark kitchen, next to the warm
stove, pounding fragrant spices
in the granite mortar and pestle?
When eyes open fully and focus
on the dim light coming from the windows,
only a stale smell of beer, and snow
laden boughs crashing.
[B] First acts
While coffee is brewing, gray black
like this dawn,
the white pages of
Kuruntokai fall open on my lap
like a split glass of warm milk.
Why am I reading this,
first thing after waking, turning
pages with fingers colored ghostly
yellow, smelling of turmeric
and sandalwood?
At whose wedding was I throwing
auspicious rice in blessing?
In what                                dream?
[C] Stepping out
The woods are clamped shut
in the vice of winter
stillness.
Blue hands, cold hands
part the brambles on the path,
Part the green branches
of her robe
and reach for her mango breasts.
Listen.
Isn’t that the koel that moaned
All summer in the hollow of
Banalata’s throat?
[D] Watching the Falls
Clouds are unloading their burdens
here. Ice drops recoil from my face,
glittering like river sand, like freshly
unhusked rice.
Air too cold, too clean
to breathe.
Where are all those cities
of shit and sweat? Where are our
bodies bound tight by thick ropes
of monsoon rains and the delicate
aromas of the love juices?
[E] Gliding over
Frost had killed all the flowers
long ago.
Now everything is shriveled up.
The pond froze over last night,
and is now thick with ice.
I glide over
freed from walking.
Yet under my feet I see my
stupid, fishy heart darting
about for crumbs,
which her hands
may have dropped, long ago.
[F] Coming to a stop
Like a frentic Christmas shopper,
I will have to chase baubles under neon
Lights: blues, greens, golds.
I can only come to rest
When I see your eyes across
a table -
moist black stones
sunk in a stream thick with
jasmine,
shaped like the flames
of earthen lamps filled with ghee -
in this now dark
city of electric sighs.