When i went cold turkey and quit smoking,
my wife was obviously happy and secretly
sad.
Even though my kisses didn't reek of tobacco anymore, it was as if her husband wasn't the same anymore.

Every once awhile, I'd catch her halt doing her chores and wistfully glancing my way
And i could tell she was wishing I'd light up
once again, like old times.
It broke my heart to see her so.
Because, you see, I'd quit only for her sake,
because she'd asked me to.

So one day after dinner, as used to be my wont, I lit up.
He was a Camel.
And he was grinning at me as i put him between my lips in the corner of my mouth
and i struck a match
and lit him up
and dragged him deep
into the pits of my lungs.
It appears he wasn't used to it there
in the dark dingy maze of my bronchioles
So he rushed out sputtering and coughing.

So i jumped on his ****** back
and we started sailing across the Saharan sands.
And we sailed for days on end,
him swaying this way and that,
with me doing likewise,
as if both were buffeted
by the same angry winds.
he wasn't thirsty, but i was,
until we came to this charming little oasis
with its signature palms,
a well, and belly-dancing Bedouin girls
who charmed the wits out of me
with glance-darts from their kohl-lined eyes.

One of them slaked my thirst
and then gave me a poncho
and she giggled when i draped it over myself
but by then , my Camel was gone.
and with him the desert too.
and i was back in my own house
and my wife was eyeing me strangely
she had a question to ask
but instead of being asked,
it just hung there in the air
like a smoky question mark.
so i didn't give any reply
to the smoky unasked question.
I just grinned at her
like my Camel.
and kissed her on her ruby lips.
a long amorous lingering kiss
and she was happy again.
because my kiss reeked of tobacco
like in the good ol' days.

God knows where my Camel is now
but i guess he's thinking of our trip
and grinning to himself.

I could think
of a hundred words,
to call out to you, my dear,
But not one of them
will be enough
to really tell you
how much you mean to me.

And so i call out
your name.

In it,
is the fragrance
of so many years
spent together,
of moments so precious
that they won't happen
in a million more years,
of memories that make
silly meaning to just the two of us.

In it,
is the warmth of your
slender, delicate hands
that i so love to hold and stroke
and weave my own fingers into.

In it,
the tenderness of your hug,
the oceans in your eyes
as they gaze into mine,
the silence of a thousand words
we left unspoken,
the heat and steam
of so much passion.

No word, no language, no endearing term
will quite be enough, my love,
to tell you really how much
You mean to me.

And so i call out
your name.

In the beginning was a trill.
that didn't quite belong
to the silence enshrouding the night.

then another, as if in reply.
then a tweet, a trill, a tweet again.
a chirp this time, replied with another,
as the chorus grew.
(Arise oh Lion among men!
Perform your Divine duties!
The eastern sky has begun to blossom,
O great son of Kausalya!)

a  pair of ears,
a  pair of eyes,
then the rest of him
was born again
in the darkness

and he knew he was both
the prince and the ten-headed one
and many others besides,
witnessing his very own fantasy,
his fear, his shame,
his throbbing lust,
seemingly anachronistic
in the gray morning.
and suddenly remembering
yesterday's sums
and its remainders,
it's untotalled accounts.

he now knew
the always new harmony
of trills and tweets
from a million eons.
he'd been witness
to so much birdsong,
to countless metamorphoses;
some noisy, most silent,
like gray turning pink-orange-golden
like friend-turning-foe
dimple-turning-wrinkle...

for one more time,
he was here and now again
before fading
into the twilight haze
of a stolen snooze.