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how to   look at you & not   feel  

the fuzz       of a dissolving disprin      

how to  not stand   in the warm halo   of your shadow  

           your hands clasping       the jellied probe  

your eyes scanning the screen   for signs of life     

  in that bloated stomach       & believe that the blanket 

of breaths   is enough.  how to not think  of the elbow graze 

        the soft touch of your thumb       a prayer of a man 

who has lost everything.  the night is raucous    with engines 

headlights glisten       like eyes of a cat       & i’m exhausted 

with desire.  i want love    that happens   through phalluses 

funnelled breaths       pockets of heart.       this body’s way 

of believing      the other body      is a cathedral. 

   it is absurd to think       how much       this body 

            wants      how gluttony      this heart is.    

In my dream       we kiss  at the chauraha  thinking that  bullets 

                 of desire          would save us  

from men       with scarred faces       dabbed in bhagwa  

honking  jai shree ram.       the homes        we hide in 

 become       wobbly bible       bolted doors          blood 

    -shot eyes.              remember the NSD screening:       

 the young laila             in her sequined zari burqa          

holding a qanoos             moving in mad circles         asking                    

                             what is my fault?          

How qays was called majnun           his eyes palpitating  

              with desire                his existence a mad        

mistake   to be fixed  by hurling  abuses   stones  rules.    

             i tendril       my fingers          on your hairy arm            

  in a desperate need         to clutch on to something           

   your body       shivers       like an overzealous vibrator     

fear darts    its tongue      lapping up all the white 

   in your eyes.   I know you     can’t       let go      

 of the mask       sacrifice sanity       for love     

 Let me       not tell myself       your aren’t a good lover 

 submerge      in the post-acoustic    shadow of sadness          

 remember you      only by the stare       with which you  

looked at the panting lady          in parrot green saree             

making her  believe               that the child’s death       

                                                               is     her      fault.