Do you remember the sky sinking?
That fall, when we climbed up our vague tree
and watched the nights burn
     softly on
Those naked arms,
                 and our pricking skins
You told me that
the dark seemed quite obese
I wondered how it could be

remember the dawns
  that lingered before us
and birds with jewels between their beaks
    Sun like a bruise clawed its way out
We never did see— never unseeing
ever on watch, yet the clouds
    grew above
and we only drew forests with our hands

yours upon mine upon
  yours upon—
and down, down plunged it all
First, gold
          then the glass
We jumped in weeping puddles
and forced the mud into birthing birds
Then came
     the silvers
and with them, those malnourished winds
Do you remember

the smoke that descended down the cliffs?
That winter, we melted
            with our pink flames
and slept away those snarling wolves
Beneath forts built of woollen quilts
        our limbs tangled, tangled
     with our tales
You told me the dark
     seemed quite obese
I nodded like
  a broken, puppet horse

then—
Dust gushed out the vessels of air
   and cars coughed
And down, down
                came it all
Dawns befriended our solitary dusks
and moons sped up their dance
I ran my fingers down
     the green of your strands
You introduced a ladybug to my skin

down, down tumbled nothing
       First the browns
then the blues
We buried our barren feet in sticky sands
and you told me
It hurt
where, I asked
here.
and there were you kissed

And blues fell upon blues
’til cold, shivering, stumbled away
And our tree was a painting
    on the lips of a stream
Restless, it lurked out our reach
and the sky
swelled and swelled
till a heavy haze came plummeting hither
And above us was left nothing but—

It hurts, you said
I asked you where
here
     here
  here—
the blues embraced the lonely of our land
and kissed it all over
  all over
Huts, playgrounds, markets—
Wells, trenches, hills and hills
children, the rest
     and voiceless shrubs
All devoured.

Do you remember the bleak stars
as they struggled to flutter
    in the smothering vacancy
Then the summer smiled
and stole our dying skies, and
  all the quiet broke loose
        in our bleached towns
We in a moor sprayed with stillness
    treaded through
the misty of our eyes
        feet upon cinders jagged
where does it hurt, I asked
  nowhere
nowhere, nowhere—

the universe watches with her
mischievous eyes
as silence stretches on
between me and the mechanical city

from up here, in winds’ embrace
the cars are decades away,
and lights only a vivid memory
straining the back of my skull

the universe, too, breathes
I hear her now
hear the vacancy stir
in her bones

one— and the archers running
down my throat
two, like the lambs slaughtered
beneath them eyes
three and four and nine—
cracked toe-nails laden with mud

—ten women weeping
eleven wishes for the wilting weeds
I sense a chariot
bumping down the ribs
twelve for the wounded boy
limping up the hill

twenty— a hundred
and hundred more

inhale

I fathom the seconds kiss their hours
and hours melting into days
weeks and minutes,
years and more
all chopped and cooked
to a frothy stew
I feel it fill up her being

and vehicles with their horns
midway
halt—
an owl’s scream stopped just
beneath his beak
and sun, statued, stands

a thousand and the stilled plane
twenty and five
for them frozen flames
sixteen— and the shooting star
taped to the night
— seven prayers left unuttered

three for now, and three
for the past,
three more as all, into the unseen, falls
two shivers, shivers still
—one and a lone worm crawling
down my veins
one and the blue child up, up the swing

exhale

I swallow
as the ticks sink back into the clock
centuries dancing again
— and months  
come stumbling home
millenniums and moments
back to their protests

as all the circus is born again

What’s with the bees?
You’ve asked
    several times now
What do I tell—
   I had not noticed them
Maybe, it’s because my lamp bleeds honey
  all over the floor and the walls

Maybe, it’s the soft buzzing of the fan
or the colourful paintings
        that are now anything but.
Perhaps all these thirsty flowers I’ve hung
  Or leaves on the wall paper
Maybe, it’s the wooden texture
of my shelves
  Maybe, it all screams ‘home’ to them

a break from those gossiping towns
    and manic roads

What can I tell— I don’t even know
Maybe it’s me they desire
—though I doubt it
                 Ask the clock,
ask him what he knows of me
I put on some music and
  it tickles my soul
—It pinches
I turn it off and all the world is left alone
  Birds ask if they can join me
I deny—
Foxes invite me to their hunts
         I deny
Owls have stories in their wings
              but what good are stories in
   a world so loud—

Sun dances from east to west to east
—untiring
I’ve lost count of her rounds
She asks me about my hues. I say,
I cannot read
    I say, I cannot write
I say, I cannot will myself to flutter
         I say, you see those wilting blossoms?
I think I’m turning into them
       (What a cheesy thing to say)

She sings me songs and paints up the sky
—I smile pink
though, why, I cannot tell
I tell her my hues are smiling, too
     She pats my cheek
and gracefully glides away
   and it is

        all still grey
the houses grey, people grey,
cars, plants, towers and stalls grey
Maybe that’s why the bees prefer
  this quiet cell

   It is still golden here
and blues still weep in the curtains
   This is us—
          I and the bees
they live on the silvery walls,
In the sheets, under the bed,
     behind those empty canvases
and inside drawers
          next to the books,
      next to the clock,
           —the picture frames

    over the fan,
the pillows, the carpet
—inside, inside me
Around me, around the poems
    taped on the door
around me
What’s with the bees?
   maybe, they’re
maybe, they’re just my friends.