Member Poem

Sweet and Fragrant Nirvana
 
You call me jaggery lips
though you have never sucked on
golden blob of sweetness
and have no idea about its taste 
only a vague memory of  
something you had sampled in Mexico
made of sugarcane juice
Sweet and fragrant! 
 
Maybe you have forgotten gulkand 
in your post dinner paan with silver foil
after a long day of sightseeing 
in the heat and dust of Benaras 
that started at Ghats and culminated 
at the silk shop where sitting midst 
thousands of pieces of fine silk 
you picked golden Ganesha on black
my favorite god whose figurines I collect 
A coincidence you would say      
 of course, like countless others. 
 
Sipping ice cold water under the droning fan 
browsing through vibrant silk pieces 
each more beautiful than the previous 
with no intention to buy any, after the 
oppressive heat of the day you had spent wandering 
the streets of the ancient city with your juvenile guide 
you picked my favorite god to take back home
 
India you did not pack in your backpack 
 lodged itself beneath your nails
flowered as a trident on your palm 
to unfold in the folds of your skin
in the twilight of ‘beaver state’ 
Thronging with love, gurgling chaos
it nestles in the crevices of your soles
 
 
You now return to me in myriad pieces 
I stow away at the back of my lingerie drawer 
run my finger along their edges listening to Beatles
try to put them together in sultry afternoons 
let lusty mangoes seduce me into thinking 
we can find a way to turn the clock around
and find nirvana in slurping their nectar
 
Sweet and fragrant!