fathers
(for dad)
they wait on scooters
at right angles to the sun
measuring the slowness of
the summer heat
against the rapidly approaching bright
future
they wish upon their sons.
they spend sparse holidays
folding old newspapers into
paper boats,
assuring their adventurous little boys
that love when shaped
this way
does not capsize.
they steal money put aside
by mothers for
potatoes and rice –
those comics
may not fill the stomach
but fathers seem to know that
it’s the heart that
needs filling;
stomachs can be trained to adjust.
and when their little boy
squats like a bird
turned to the window light
hungrily pecking at that comic
his little heart skipping
like a flat pebble across
the water of his
childhood,
his father watches,
his heart full now,
hoping this could stay
exactly this way
forever;
but knowing it
will not be so, he
turns, walks away,
measuring the slowness of
his stride
against the rapidly approaching
shadows of
eventuality.
shubh yatra
the train gallops away on metal hooves
eighteen hundred kilometres from
her destination measured
like a tailor’s tape across
the chest of a nation
as the large pale X branded on her rump
sinks into the distant darkness
the cajole of an azaan slides
into the space left vacant by
a tired engine horn climbing
they call her the Gyaneshwari
not for the sporadic emerald gleam that
brings a spring to her step in the dark fields
nor for the seductive way she stretches
over plateau beds between hills
or the winking glimmer of jewels down
both her groaning sides
not even for her voluptuous smoky raven
hair pouring out
behind her as
she becomes a speeding charioteer
and her dark locks – wisps in the night air
they call her the Gyaneshwari
because she wears a bindi
that glows
like a second sun
and because she leaves her lover Lokmanya
every evening with a loud moan dying
sliding down the graceful gullet
of the azaan
making neat rows of intensely hunched backs
suddenly
straighten,
part their hands over their faces –
private curtains sliding open –
revealing a thousand devout faces
to a spartan truth.
fabricated
embroidered sea, laced
with surf, drapes a memory
in salt white chiffon.
mud
she asked if she could plant herself
on me, she had dreamt
of mangos the night
before and asked me to google
what that meant
the fruit of my labour
came organically
sexual,
said google
her hair hung like a hundred roots
searching my skin for
a trace of an aquifer
wet,
she’d said
in a chat message,
when i’d asked her how she’d been
reaching for the sky could take
seventy years
if you are a tree
the rest of us find our clouds
underneath our eyelids as we
shudder
into fistfuls of mud.
drunk on wine, we intertwined
‘talk to me’ said she
‘what about?’ said he
‘about my fingers and my lips
the smooth arc of my hips
my nipples when they swell
my weeping, laughing spell’
and she grew taut
he cleared his throat
her skin exploded in goose pimples
at the thought
of hearing him whisper
some sinful lie
he looked her in the eye
‘i like to hear you say it
all
it makes me warm,’ she broke a smile
he turned on his side to face her
gently pulled her into him
smashing
the inch or two between them
mixing sweats
as she breathed,
‘talk to me’.
he took her nipple in his mouth
tapping morse
on its tip
with his tongue
as she clung
to his shoulders about
to fall
her knees trembled as she heard
him call,
a river changing course
inside her
he swam up through the surge
she wrestled with the urge
to tear him open
look for words
to describe this sudden flight
this crashing of day and night
this four-armed, four-legged
thing
they had become
to sing
into his open mouth, reverberate
down to his throbbing inside her,
satiate
but instead she surrendered
letting herself fill
up his mouth until
he paused, his tongue perturbed,
fished out a very long hair
held it up, realized
it was
the same length
as hers
he turned her over, held her wrists
tied them with the hair, kissed her fists
leaned into her reddening ear
traced its rim
with his tongue
brought her
to the brim
and then sprung
himself into her, leaned in deep
and started talking.
These poems were part of The Poetry Issue 2023, curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of these should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
More from The Byword
Comments
*Comments will be moderated