i want to write a poem
because there’s
a silent restlessness rising inside
bubbling up
as formless words
into my throat

a poem

about impatient giggly sex
at four in the evening on
her living room floor,
the absence of a condom
punctuating our desperation
with helpless
laughter

about urgent conversations in darkness
had by my housemaid
and her teenage daughter
when the electricity gets cut at 7 p.m.
every night,
to keep each other awake because to
fall asleep would
mean to
surrender to the
mosquitoes

a poem
about the tamil shadow puppeteer
74
last of his line
lover of Old Monk,
whose paper Hanuman brandished a cannon
sized penis
and whose Ravana
could barely locate his,
and who
died last week
along with his rare craft,
and whose son returned
to his call centre job in the
city the day after
the last rites

or a poem
about a sudden mid-March
thundershower
that drenches shirts and sarees
into surprised, goose-fleshed skins
revealing startled nipples

or a poem
about hilsa fish
cooked in
hypnotic mustard
so delicious
that it
brings the fish back
to life
for one
last swim
in its gravy lake

or a poem
about longing

or a poem
on a
sparrow

or one
about childhood

or one that’s simply
a stack of verses
about nothing at all

or a poem
about poems

or maybe one
about writing one

or perhaps
i want to write a poem
because a vacuum
opened up in the space around me
and just these many words,
not a word more or
less,
will fill it up,
the last available spot
being plugged
by this full stop.