When in the span of this night
did you cease becoming a stranger,
when did your voice as if in a morning prayer
calling me from behind, from across a dream
become recognizable?

I crave the lost taste of hunger,
yet I notice how the citric smell of mango flowers fill the air,
how in tiny ripples rain announces its arrival in my courtyard pool,
I trace the flap of the crows against the palm fronds,
I stare listlessly at the ants making their way in a hurry
I soak in the infinite voices of silence,
still its not enough to out crowd
the constant thoughts of you

I let the ocean be tonight,
interrupting our conversation
roaring in dissent
foaming around its mouth in rabid rage of rejection
in occasions i challenged it with my eyes to come lick
a slice of this tranquility
in which you and i were
the only part
but in the end i just let it be
claiming us-laughing covered in sticky sand-in a snatch of hurry
and tugging us back into its fold

The rickshaw puller
peddled my heart,
rising and sinking
as he made our way through the narrow gullies that
spread around like sensuous waves
of an enchantress' mane hiding within her curls
ancient secrets smelling of attar and lust,
holding to her bosom couplets of  forgotten poets ,
and sighing in remembrance of  her lovers from a better time.
With night wrapped around it,
filling the contours of my eyes,
 the half globe of the distant dome
through invisible strings of  faith tethering millions to it,
over it the moon holding a cup of venomous power
seeing histories run through tidal waves,
on the sidewalks barbers sat
shining knifes clearing
 white foams of fatigue
off jaded faces of workers
and hawkers who sell bronzes of fake mongolian buddhas.
In the moving crowd
violet eyes of young men
speaking forth  languages of civilizations
I have not heard yet,
cutting painfully through me as they pass and vanish
like glass glued strings of silk kites from yore,
I sat back cautioning my heart in vain
not to fall in love on these streets.

Its strange how I find ways into you,
losing and finding my way through,
in moments of inebriated calmness
as I falter my way across cobbled streets
and speeding cars and the glowing light bulbs of the night,

otherwise in moments of frantic search
for a misplaced ticket,
flipping through books, words falling upon words
cutting through it and  my searching vision
an old picture torn into four
in some fit of anger,
piecing it together I sit staring at myself, years younger smiling at you
behind the lens,
in amusement over something you said.

I am holding onto a branch leaning on to me with my weight,
my face a study in contrast
the sun hitting me on one side
diffusing gold into my hair,
and half hidden in shadows the other remains
soothsaying of  ensuing dusk,
I am struggling to look beautiful, pouting my thin lips out and aah,
you said, 'the tree is less wood than you today'
and I broke into the photo
and like that
and like that you owned me and that moment,
like that you own me and this moment
forgetting about the journey and its lost tickets.

No, I haven't forgotten.
I still think about it,
it comes and hits me
plunges me low
gasping for breath.
What you did to me
was to take a shot in the dark
leave a burning hole
that I try filling everyday.

embrace me thus

Before I walked in groups of
red ribboned girls and boys in blue shorts
along the lantana laden paths
to learn notebooks full of how not to live,
to keep my legs together when I sat down,
to not laugh out loud with my voice tremors against their universal rhythm,
to not question the absurdity of being called a fragile leaf
eventually to be torn on an unbreakable thorn of a man's penis,
Before all the diktats on breathing walking sleeping thinking
when I was myself,
their fingers not on me yet nudging,
molding into forms as I pleased
unaware floating

will you embrace me thus
like you had known me then?