Frayed
Blind and deaf,
My hands are smeared
in blood.
I light the shuddering lamp
invoking scriptures
for a mute God this morning.
Turning around silence
pleating my brazen lies,
I drape nine yards of cowardice
tucking in the first edge of fear
as my brethren are dragged from homes
stripped and walked,
herded as cattle along the weathered path
around my village. Ribs, thigh, haunches.
Their burning skin becomes mine
as the opaque sun flickers on the blades of grass.
I draw a fishtail
on the shadow of my coal-smeared honour
and nail the last cross on my tongue
when they are led into fields amidst
jeers and war cries.
Silence is a snake on the frayed edges
of shame when there is nothing more to be inked
upon this battlefield of my bruised body.
Growing Tomatoes
That afternoon
we walked in yellow rain,
afterward migrating to a rusted bench,
our disagreements –
a dead lizard in waiting,
I pick up a distant word
drained of colour.
The neat long folds of your clothes
filled your side of the almirah
‘Can you ever find anything
when you need it?’- you ask
No, I still cannot, decades later.
I cannot remember the hatred or anger
I have lost my tongue in the alleyway
of fear.
I have misplaced all the sweetness we gathered
in the godless temples
All I remember is the moon in your eyes,
the green veins on your forehead,
the way you scooped a whole tomato
from the slow-cooked dal
your sarong fluttering
under the fan,
on our shared clothesline,
the three times I went down
the alley in summer, for
each time milk would curdle
and I wanted to serve
the perfect custard.
This silence gnawing dark
as Manipur burns in our shared garden
of blighted tomatoes.
