grace

you read their disappointment
in words that betray distance.
years of love come undone
in a moment that demanded more
but customarily missed its due.
who will take it upon them now
to believe in myths of redemption?
Did the phoenix leave a message,
somewhere in the universe for you to find?
Can a faith lost recover in absence?

Where do you even begin.

With an apology, some say.
You start growing an apology tree.
The deepest of injustices,
the sorest of pains, the clenched fist
that is the heart will all be poured
into this tree that is but a seed
not of discontent, nor regret,
not yet hope, but is borne of fire,
of tears, of guilt that ransacks
sleep, of an ache that wrings
consciousness, of silence that
accuses itself over and over.
in time, perhaps,
there will be a peace offering.
Until then, take your place.
at the millstone, and see
what comes of this churning.

To those who have been hurt
by your inertia, may they find peace
in the path they tread.

To you, may you never reach that road.
Let the world root for the millstone.

textures

Driving across indecorously cold lakes
blue as the walls of your pulverised heart,
the silvery green and maroon draping trees
reminds you of raided wooden almirahs of
mother and grandmother, rich in sharp hues
of history and emotion. Your eyes are bound
to lead you back to your own bleak sartorialism,
divorced from seasonal or other affinities. And
comfort will latch on to ABBA lyrics hoping for
anchor in the soft tissues of simple rhyme,
distant friendly neighbours in lieu of family,
and mosaics of ever-shifting narratives that
slip in and out of slimy hands and memories,
never quite sure where they belong, or to whom.

The other day, when your neighbour came by
with fish bought from the foul-mouthed fisherwoman
who speaks well only of the limp dead she sells
for cryptic conversation, on a day that your
fridge and stomach had yelped in emptiness,
on that day, how did you thank him? Did you ask
about the fisherwoman who never sold you
the trout because she found you weak. Not fragile,
just flaccid. Did you tell him of an autumnal dawn
you had stood by the quay, still crisp in memory
like the season’s leaves? You had wanted to know
her story (as if lives are meant to be “peddled in the
thoroughfares”). And if her grandmother had told her
that she needn’t fight all the battles she was invited to,
like yours had, many moons ago. (Or yesterday?)
She had laughed at you. Called you undeserving,
And spitting out her contempt laced in betel juice,
she had told you of her homosexual son being hit
by his father, on a winter morning when the rain
fell like mist and washed the blood off his face in
trickling rivulets. He had mustered his ‘manhood’,
and hit back, and walked out. On both of them.
On his last day, as she sat by him, chewing betel,
he had recalled that morning, in its event-ness, but
death could not wait, for reconciliation, or realisation.
Questions had rushed to your face. She could see that.
But leaving you swimming in them, she went back to
washing the fish that would never be yours to take,
singing to the unearthly salmon with vacant eyes,
“Tell me, What dreams are yours alone. Like hungry
wounds, unsutured by tired television, untreated by
warm milk and turmeric ‘nanny’ made on winter nights,
as if weaving the course of your golden fantasies.
How did you know when to separate yourself
From what others wanted of you, or did you...”

On some nights, you hear the song, in her voice,
that becomes mother’s, then grandmother’s, and
then a choral whisper of enmeshed timbre that cannot
be distinguished. It rings in your ears until you flop on
the bed, and find the fisherwoman closing your eye lids
and all three women washing you gently by the quay.