OF NOW AND THEN

You want to talk to someone.
You want to talk to someone seriously, quietly,
without the distraction of getting angry,
or crying, or touching.
You don't want to beg.

You want to talk to someone, not confidentially,
not in private:
the whole world must listen in.
You want to talk to someone because silence
is a kind of suicide.

You want to be 18, hike up a hill,
kiss beneath a lime tree in the light
of a hundred candles,
before a Catholic shrine.
The colour of zinnias burning in your eyes.

You want to eat oranges, try dodging raindrops,
make clouds in your coffee.
When did you last look into a mirror
and smile like a geranium petal?
When did you last dream?
When did you last get wet?

You want to talk and talk to someone
other than yourself.
In the end, you don't want to talk to anyone,
you want to keep quiet.
You want someone to talk to you!
 
 

IN A WORKING WOMEN'S HOSTEL

1
The evening is an experience of high tide.
I escape. Twelve storeys above the city
the terrace is my great outdoors.
Rs.350 p.m. to meet God is not much at all.
Somewhere along the skyscraper skyline
I walk to and fro. A nun without a vocation!

Am I lonely? Or am I a loner? The difference
must be resolved quickly now.
My private communion is overlooked by superior
balconies, terraces.
The sun makes a weeding finale. A henna-
coloured horizon, smudged eyeshadow clouds.

A patchwork of lights coming on compete
gaudily with the stars.
The rising full moon tells a familiar story.
A breeze purrs, inspires fear, I trip over
the silver wings fluttering on the crazy floor.
A distant sea roars in my ears.

Up here flight is a dangerous illusion.
Crying is a terminal argument. I
return to my room.

2
Waking up at night is a symptom of aging.
I kick aside the warm weather of my blanket,
the touch of my own thighs, breasts,
is an embarrassment.
In the winter cold I fold myself up in supplication
to hear myself more clearly.

Listening to my own confessions is a 
third-degree past-time.
I function as a one-woman courtroom.
I have sealed up my life i black envelopes
addressed to no one in particular.
'Confidential. It is the rough wool of a man
you want tonight and every night.'

'A woman can feed herself. Love begins
with a man.'
And so on and so on. The colour of bones
is in my hair now
and I have come to a standstill.
The passing days have a posthumous
touch to them.