The Last Lyric

The lyric fell from the Gulmohar	      branches soaring above the dry 
                              courtyard, floating right into my waiting mouth,	  upended

and hungry like a wicketkeeper’s sticky glove. The lyric didn’t possess 
                              the flesh of fruit	     or ball; it defied resemblance

to anything that came sealed	       with the legacy of gravity.
                              Slimy yet firm, a prelude	      to skin, in another world it was,

perhaps, a blinking tongue, zealous	  and warm. I slipped
                              it into my pocket;       when I took it out, it had hardened

into a locket, and before you knew, I had exchanged it at Asia’s largest 
                              open trade fair,	   at the swollen banks of Mahanadi,

for a certificate of excellence that had my name spelled
                              the way I wanted it to be—without vowels,        I swear I could

have been a spy. That certificate I used	  to satisfy the unique eligibility 
                              criteria to participate in a hoopla competition where my

shockingly accurate throws helped me win	 a pair of imitation anklets
                              to tie around your	beloved feet—this gesture of romantic

munificence I believed would steel	   my body for the imminent
                              coup, an underground	 revolution against cheap wine

and incorrect predictions of football	     pundits on Sunday television,
                              two pie radians looking at us in the eye—the optometrist didn’t

prescribe glasses for peripheral	   vision. When I missed you, I wished
                              my kitchen was dirty and my bedsheets	 clean. At your side,

the whodunits and season finales—cliffhangers	  served spicy hot,
                              already salted to thy taste. When the commentators sounded

like opera singers during the final	moments of a grandstand
                              finish, your fingers rolled	           over my bracelet of Pondicherry

ashram beads—will you find again those silent minutes	 to teach me 
                              resonance? Wherever you are now—to see the galaxy of stars

trapped in your profuse body, position	 yourself in a corner and look across 
                              the diagonal	      to the other corner: the universe in every room

lies open like a diamond	flattened to achieve the kind
                              of capaciousness that lends	   merit to such audacity.

The diamond I have trusted always, given my confusion
                              with spades and clubs—is there a drug	        for this condition

of predisposition? The water I drink	    is the water I flush and my throat 
                              in the middle,	 a restless conduit swanning in the rinse

of dirty atomic red: how will you stitch	  if there is no wound
                              to treat? Against which tissue	      shall you press your healing

touch? Living grows invisible	on tooth and nail. Remember the library
                              by the museum? Languishing there on a dusty rack beside stacks

of old Filmfares, National Geographics and Scientific Americans is a book 
                              of poems I wish I had written. Someone has scribbled

I want to love	on the back of its front cover.
                              Thumbing through, I find       most of the pages are torn.

Read more from Issue 18.2.