Free Association

I couldn't write poetry, even if you paid me, he said.
Even if I was pickled, he said,
So we decided to listen to music.

Have you noticed, he said,
That the vermilion in your parting...
That the hibiscus in the garden sometimes,
When it blooms in full sunlight,
Is exactly that shade?

The way you stand, he said,
When you're making something lovely for dinner,
When you know I've come back too tired to help
And I just want to stand there watching you -
But I ask, nonetheless -
And when you wave me away, saying
"It's nothing, it's all done."
When you turn from counter to stove,
And you stir the familiar old pot and your wrist moves like a cloud,
And when you stand, and you laugh at me gazing like that,
The way you stand
Is like a Bharatanatyam dancer in that brief moment of repose
Between movements.

Your voice, he said,
Is like wine in a glass
Against golden light.


(First posted on anothersubcontinent.com.)