"Absurd may be the tale I tell,
Ill-suited to the marching times,
I loved the lips from which it fell,
So let it stand among my rhymes."

~ from "Jogadhya Uma" by Toru Dutt

she's wearing a white low-neck lie

like a roof over the shanty of her skin.

the wall-clock's hourly tantric jazz

outplaying the shanti of her sin.

she wants to raise your consciousness

by telling you of how krishna's flute

praised the broken pots of radha

and damn, your consciousness is raised too

stiff as a snake you want her to step on rather

like krishna danced on kaliya's head.

she wants to be the orchard veil

between the battering ram and the iron gate.

her hold on you is inchoate

but aren't you firm in your lack of sail?

her landlord, the fisher king, is hell bent

on inflating her monthly rent

and she wants you to help her meet it

an eye for an eye and a tit for a tit.

you spit, and move on articulately

though you haven't been thinking

much of anything lately.

her lipstick stains your cigarette

and your lips are to blame for that.

she's always below you. the smoke billows.

coughing she runs to open the windows-

a leaf briefly grieving

sieved and conceived

in the contact

between belief and believing

that man woman child tree and earth

are sacrosanct

and mirth.

~ ajay

1/7/2022