While scratching my beard, I vacantly
warmed my face in the sunlight
infiltrating through the dross window.
Spoken about car horns many times,
will resume many times more
although they don't share their language
with me on any level, preferring to cleave
the jangling nature of bylanes, almost as if
to summarize the gasp of coal.

I refix my eyes on the book,
find a beard strand on Partha Chatterjee's extract.
I, as it turns out, shed on the problem
of imagined communities.
My friend's laptop plucks data for her eyes
and its charging wire hangs precariously
like a ratty bridge that's newly renovated.

Something sweet left on the bedside table,
not within arm's reach, but I stretched anyways-
adipose weight alliterated against the sheet,
pectoral garage grunge sounds because the sand
is still puckered in my eyes which adjust
to the helix of light over time;

light, like lavender talc branched in.
My wrist flinched from the cold metal ****
of a compartment under the chestnut top
with papers spread expeditiously.
With my hand scampering for a sign
I splintered the squeak of a rickshaw.

A shy crow pretended to dodge a bullet outside the window;
right thumb still wasn't ready to draw the pattern
that unlocks my phone, but we do things
when we wake up and look beside ourselves
for warmth. We hadn't exchanged numbers,
but you'd left yours in a text, with an invitingly pale font.

Your lips left perfumed migraines where you kissed me,
but that's a good thing.

varsity jackets,
badges of glory,
guarantees
left by old, old money.
state champions'
tendency
to wander
pass female dorms,
late at night,
reasons of, not far
beyond her.
homecoming queens,
smiles permanent,
eyes glassed,
twisted sovereigns.

I am a spirit electric
begot by the gods of random,
mothered by chaos.

I live viciously,
eat forbidden fruit,
wreak havoc wherever
I go.

I am wild sea
I am dust-storm,
tsunami, volcano,
steel-breasted, fire-armed
on the outside.

I am petal-hearted,
honey-breathed,
cloud-kissed,
gold-showered
on­ the inside.

I weave multi-colored magic
onto mountains, spray deserts
with quivering star-drops.
expect impossibly wonderful
outcomes.

I want to die like
that old Chinese poet –
drunk, drowned in a pond,
trying to embrace the full moon.