For him

1


His nectared name
will colour my lips,
till another mouth
will hold it
between her rubied lips.

2

There, we were,
without any need
for exaggeration of held hands,
just aloof in love without promises.

There, when he offered me
to explicate
the delicate matter of the heart,
amidst the cutlery
and blunt knife
and bored diners,
My ‘No’ stuck in my throat
unable to tumble and collide
with his expectant eyes.

How terrible were partings then,
when we kept meeting
after we bade our ‘goodbyes’.


3

Shards of glasses
broken long ago
in a corner
untouched by the tapering wisp
of the aged broom
suddenly pricked my fingertips today
Untouched
not even
the moist edge of the mop
could cajole it out
And now it was
beneath my skin –
A glittering of pain
A slight warm blood


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Asti*

Beyond the courtyard
moss grown
where the cement had lost
to the repeated lashings of annual rains
I picked her bone
with the last withering steel-gray of ash
Around my neck
I offered it to her
delicately
wrapped in hues of saffron
She, given to fluffy pillows
and softness of downy bedcovers
Now a wooden clasp for pillows
Bedcovers she had none
Just a parasol of palm leaves
to tide over the dark world of mud, water and stars



asti- A Vaishnav Hindu funeral ceremony observed usually on the 6th day