Around the round fountain the noon sun circles. Some women in a huddle are talking. (Elsewhere old crones sit on deserted village streets, watch the dogs and mumble toothlessly) Their hair forms a quilt of black and yellow.They are smoking and I know I had left you behind.

A jet streaks a minimalist sky, with it's white smoky fingers. I don't know it's destination, it's headed east, should I persume that you still are waiting somewhere for my return? Would you recognize me if I did make a journey to you? And more importantly would I recongize myself in your eyes?

I am forgetting you slowly, as they say here, just like an ex. Many things are now different, I just can imagine how you smelt after walking in summer rain( dark earth, spices of Malabar),the clarity of your eyes(humid old starlight) and your cooking( just like my love which was and is suffocating).

But when you cross me second hand, in books( the colors are orche and saffron),in dark eyes( of women with brown skin) and in words of songs( Meera's bhajans); inspite of a quickening of breath, I don't stop and turn around. You are but an echo imprisoned in the chambers of a nautilus, shell upon shell that Time has built, whose whipsers I now ache

To hear.

2002:03:23 17:45 Atlanta