You and I have spent centuries
travelling across ruins in the city.

The ruins of the rugged skin
on a blacksmith’s palm,
the ruins of overdrunk streets
unhurried with nostalgia,

the ruins of the dark abyss of those eyes
on the molten face in the crowd
flowering up at the edges of cankerous memory.

You and I have tasted the sweat
on sun-baked bodies that shrivel up
with desire when winter comes,

with heart throbbing and pupils dilating
when an artful peck winds down
the texture of solitude.

You and I are always half-arriving on the hill
remembering the places we had promised
to visit but never did;

the lakes, the souvenirs, the airports
and the people we had planned to meet
all haunt us in repetition like unminted memory.

Instead
we are here at home on a Friday night
talking of New York, London, Amsterdam

staring at my lathered face in the mirror
while you recoil in bed
in the ruins of the Calcutta summer.