“kashmir shrinks into my mailbox
My home a neat four by six inches
I always loved neatness.now I hold
The half inch Himalayas in my hand”-
Agha Shahid

Ruh,
The letters that have reached are etiolated
And in it I hear the secretive cry
Of the unnamed relatives
Standing with roasted babycorns
on Bagmati’s bank
Waiting to be juxtaposed in the ash-ed remains
they had offered the devourer

I have come back greyed
From the guerrilla operations
Contracting diseases
that you can never find
– they build up like the rugby heap in an ivy league
Every moment they surge
up and up
I have contracted loneliness
That you could never find

I do not turn back to look at the mirror
The red bindis proliferated everyday
All over the glass
The mercury could not take the heat of the night
A cloth draped around the 4 legs
The dimples smiled around the waist, her waist
But the faces changed everyday
Like the choices of whisky
The mercury told the glass-you cannot reflect
– Yes, I have contracted loneliness

I could go back to you
like during the autumn end
with my bag full of goodness
and that you never saw in me.
Kashmir would have kept you happy.
The orchids’ whispers are playful
At the station they told – babu, make your wife pretty for a day.
How I wished you were here
prettier
Than my contracted loneliness

I knew you could write me back
Even after I left you
For the very first time
our roles reversed and I could think of leaving you
because I never like the shape of your brows
may be you got it trimmed today
and I know you could have been prettier
and on those nights I could have sculpted the enigma
between those thighs
quenched the vivacity of those proud lips
winked at the nose that wobbled
winked at those eyes
that never dreamt of me
and whispered into those little ears
provided you were pretty
and provided I was not that lonely
that you have made me
…………………………………………………………I can blame you
Provided, you stopped looking for fidelity