from TRIAL

7

It is night alone helps
to achieve a lucid exclusiveness.
Time that had dimmed
your singular form
by its harsh light now makes
recognition possible

through this opaque lens.
Touch brings the body into focus,
restores colour to inert hands,

till the skin takes over,
erasing angularities, and the four walls
turn on a strand of hair.
 
 
 

from HOMECOMING

14

I am no longer myself as I watch
the evening blur the traffic
to a pair of obese headlights.

I return home, tired,
my face pressed against the window
of expectation. I climb the steps

to my flat, only to trip over the mat
outside the door. The key
goes to sleep in my palm.

I fear I have bungled again.
That last refinement of speech
terrifies me. The balloon

of poetry has grown red in the face
with repeated blowing. For scriptures
I, therefore, recommend

the humble newspaper: I find
my prayers occasionally answered there.
I shall, perhaps, go on

like this, unmindful of day
melting into the night.
My heart I have turned inside out.

Hereafter, I should be content,
I think, to go through life
with the small change of uncertainties.