Autumn is for running out of words
Autumn, quietly rotting,
My body all crevices
Sewn together each moonless night,
Unravelling, then, undoing all,
This clear-eyed hush of seasons’ ends,
This snuffing out of sounds.
A quiet hand traces my hairline,
The hollows of my skull, these are
The limits of my face,
Here I disappear routinely.
My windowpanes are a jumble
Of frosted glass and tree-limbs
Tangling, wayward shards
And shadow blades
Swaying in the wind.
Then, the soft evanescence of dusk.
The hazy lights of withering months,
Lurk already, my heart,
The edges of this face
Against this window, I end.
My words, those rain-soaked birds
Now cower somewhere out of sight.
After Darwish
It is summer in autumn that binds me and binds you—
These nights are a soft shade of purple
My collarbone a sickle
In the tender shadows
Of this abandoned room.
The mercury doesn’t dip anymore
In my city,
Somewhere glass shatters and
You are gone
But I was never there,
There is spring in winter,
There are flowers in your hair
And as the night wind ripples
Through ghastly pools of street lights,
I see you there.
These days are a dull shade of beige
Though the earth spins faster,
And I, who hold oceans in my body,
feel the motions of the earth,
I feel more keenly,
The ridges of my spine
Are rock formations,
My hair is a river,
I am the Earth’s most cherished secret
Given generously,
Given, now, in hurt,
I yield.
These afternoons are a mellow shade of green,
My skin fills up with flowers,
And I imagine I have disappeared,
Like a cat behind a tree,
Never re-emerging.
Now the winds are kindly,
Now, a different moment,
Far too late to see, perhaps,
That I belong in leafy places,
And as there is spring in winter,
There will be flowers in my hair,
As I vanish in the tall grass.
Oranges
Fortnights ago we got oranges
from a fruit vendor,
Wedged between the barbershop and the departmental store,
an old woman with a face made only of crow’s feet,
her oranges were from her own backyard. When she smiled
we saw
She had no teeth.
I watched you look for the fruits,
Choose them with so much care,
Your face puckered in concentration
And wondered if your mother had made the same face
picking out oranges for you,
But that must have been years ago,
And your hands where two
white spiders rummaging through the fruits,
taut skin encasing golden pulp.
And you searched for
the perfect texture,
the perfect balance of firmness and softness,
Imagining their sting in your mouth,
pressing each fruit with your index finger
with infinite tenderness,
infinite discrimination.
And I watched the sunlight thread through your hair,
A red-brown cascade of warmth falling over your cheek,
You were growing it out,
For no reason.
In the late afternoon
it reminded me of Van Gogh paintings,
or of the foliage of a young, jubilant tree
on the first day of summer.
But the air had fuzzy edges,
Reminding me
that we were in the middle of October.
And it was on the spur of the moment
that we had ditched the car
and decided to walk home.
And it was on the spur of the moment
that I grabbed your hand
The moment we were off the main road,
And when I kissed it
I smelled oranges
from a distant mountain village
we had never been to,
And never will.
Illustration : Suman Mukherjee
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