Grief, In All Shapes And Sizes
Saving You A Seat
Acquired Taste
Snow
a snow-draught country’s admiration for snow is its incarnations,
such as a succession of dust that tumbles within a beam of light,
and the bed of cotton pods ripened at the seams,
or the drizzle of rain caught to hair that turns silver,
when it falls in a flitter like a pale bug of the forest
A Drunken Dance
she held me upright on the grass,
at our feet lay remains of white flowers, raat ki raani
we swayed, or danced and i told her she reminded me of the moon.
Father
caress, his wrinkled finger along the lobe of her ear,
earrings dangling, lingering silver.
silvered moon, crescent and virtually extinct,
extinction of her perfume as they dance,
dancing, my mother in the lead.
leading father, his fingers round the fabric, feel its texture at her waist
wasted. wasted at the thought of her,
her hair which parted, bridge a space on her furrowed forehead,
forehead to kiss.
kiss her again,
against a pretence of obligation.
obliged to love her and be,
be her lover, though his love for her displaced.