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.

By noon the summer sun has wiped dry rain’s sibilant face.
Last night, even her mirrors recoiled from my expectant face.

At that station where trains disappear at the bend and leave no trace,
Clutching a (false?) telegram I pace for his return, for his radiant face
I slashed the price on this discounted heart – it is free now, like grace,
As I lifted my singed hand from Beloved’s “love you? I can’t” face.
A sphere with center everywhere and circumference nowhere, absolute space:
God even if you are only this, I insist on an encounter with your redundant face.
O Sashi, why do you always wander back to this mound of bricks, this burnt place?
Why do you, even as you don’t believe, at muezzin’s call, wash your hesitant face?
Notes:


Muslims before prayers are required to carry out a ritual cleansing –
washing the face is one of the steps in this process.


“A sphere with center everywhere and circumference nowhere”
was taken from J.L. Borges’s essay ‘Pascal’s Sphere’, which is included
in his book ‘Other Inquisitions’.






My Poems

Tonight it is raining over New York City. And towers of rain stand in the streets Between towers of light, and shatter Over your upturned face as it rises To the sidewalk among subway shoals.

Tonight a secret is being born. You hear rustling of hands Tearing open the envelope of What you know. At your feet Eddies of a scattered alphabet, A trace of ash left on your eye Lash by a sudden lightning flash.

Tonight something is opening Its wings among the fissures of Your scarred heart. You must Now find its name hidden in All these unread lines of rain.