Smoking a Cigarette at the Window of Our House in Carmen | Lora Tomas

This afternoon I wrote down:
“I want to observe the gradual
Decrease of the angle at which light
Grabs hold of the wild vine on the façade
Of our house in Carmen.”

The Old City slips into dusk.
Lit squares appear on the houses opposite
The ruins
Where one-eyed cats
Sleep among nocturnal flowers
That open up purple in the dark
Or the tumbled-over stone blocks
Resembling children’s graves.

Korean tourists mill along the city walls
In identical raincoats.

(It was raining half an hour ago.)

On the other side, invisible from here,
I evoke the Sponza Palace
Built following the Fibonacci pattern
And divided into golden sections
As, again, is my body
And the direction into which sunflowers grow
As well as the spiral geometry
According to whose laws
This cigarette smoke
Coils and mathematically
Ascends into the sky.

I listen to the breathing of the hypnotic giardini.
Anticipate the imminent going from here.

The journey that doesn’t even ask for evidence
‘Cause it has already incised itself into the feet
As fatigue it will eventually cause
And I feel it as the need
To leave the window
And turn on the gas cooker
To make tea.
Then I remember your words:
“I don’t need storms or big amplitudes –
Just a simple rippling of life.”

I, on the other hand,
Would love to observe a city
Through the shift of seasons,
As I will be saying
Only a few months from now
While we rush down a highway
Somewhere in South Delhi
Evading the blinding headlights
From the opposite direction.
We, who will have known each other
Only for three weeks by then
And are already buying a suit
For his best friend.

At the moment, still,
It’s hard for me to leave the walled city,
So safely enveloped in its stone embrace,
And reflected in its precise beauty.

They say, if you cut the skin
At the right angle
You can significantly lessen
The bleeding.

Indian Review | Author Profile | Lora Tomas is an indologist, writer, translator and editor from Croatia, currently living and working in Bangalore. In the past, She has worked as English and Hindi teacher, and Hindi advisor and translator for Croatian Television. She has also co-edited and translated into Croatian a selection of contemporary Indian women writing Popodnevni pljuskovi (Afternoon Showers), published by the VBZ Publishing House, Zagreb, 2011, and have contributed travelogues, interviews, and other articles for Croatian, Indian and Asian publications, and web portals such as Him?l, Fountain Ink, Goa Herald, Jet Wings, and H-Alter.