This aloneness has no morals in mind:
Only white emptiness and the black of it
Fall like hexagonal snowflakes with deer-horn edges,
Piling, tumbling till they fuse water. They purify me.

Love never made much sense to me anyway.
The mystic it is made of: the stellar parallax of it
Tempts me, a loveless woman, to its orbits of unknown.
Queuing kisses exit and de-exit from it like civilized people.

The moon is pregnant and partner-rich tonight:

Its stars of many flashes sing and dance
Thundering sky-melody comets,
As the world slowly turns.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002