No, it didn’t happen in classrooms
Of syllabus and assignments. But
Somewhere amid the iron rusty
Windows Of 28-rupee bus tickets
From yellowed Platform signs. All
from
(Kayankulam to Cantonment)
No, not the gust, but visits a florid
Breeze after 6 over my garnered age.
Sliding beneath her gold embroidered
curtains, under the ashen newspaper
Speaking of potholes and crows.
How you commute in colored notes
(Adoor to Adoor)
from district to the next is unfamiliar.
Surely, spicy how it rolls from me
Tongue to hers/his/theirs. Carried on
To the red slits on their skin. Fleshed.
Pages, the her-story of breasted warriors,
with ease. You slip off the sky’s night
gown. On the same earth hurried kings,
Queens, and ivory throned British malice.
(Adoor to Thiruvananthapuram)
Exiting from a throbbing earthen stilt
kindness, a dry sandy footstep. From your
children’s 44 rivers, where song and dance,
clamored from the shore. Must be that glued
pride, divine of your esteemed royalty
(Periyar, Achenkovil)
Perhaps a brown rattlesnake, you slither
into all riding on health magazines, pamphlets
and late news debates. In hymns of praise and
folded envelopes of austerity from the rain dren-
ched postbox.
Like drizzle at night from a cup.
And if you were a spirit, you swim about
in the death of fishes in cat mouths begging
around with crows in busy smelly harbors, stray dogs
with their tongues out flicking ripened mango
( Aluva Central Stn. To Thiruvalla)
pickles on railroad tracks packed with rice and Coconut milk.
Children of mammal and mamma fighting out for
A leaf foiled bundle or rise and rotten fish.
You and I
We share a familiar vision of spring
Bedding an acid sting like memory
(Kottayam toThrissur)
Of raw plantains in mouth. Coconut oil
On head. Crying with my tooth on a
String from my greasy door handle.
There’s a way she rolls of my mouth
To his/hers/theirs.
After all it’s the better language
To kiss with. And after bury with.
(Adoor to Ranni,Kollam)