I saw her across the highway, shyly dancing,
Mute spectators imprinting her inside their memory,
Some to their cameras.
She tangled the desert with the whirls of her skirt,
Walked its bare chest with anklets melting to the hot sun,
Only to sell salt, her monopoly, and sing in perfect melody,
A stranger to the land, a stranger everywhere.
Where does it hurt? I have no idea
Somewhere inside, it was raining, raining heavily
Music and art and love decoding themselves to a new myth.
At absolute moments like this-
I cried, powerlessly begging for help, distressed corridors-
Pushing me across wind, water, light and obsessions
It did hurt. Everywhere.
“Your eyes are black, black as coal, oh banjara!”
I was sinking into her scrap clay
The pedant moulded into pots and toys and saucers
Lurking with words she barely penned, love,
As divine as it is, like onion in peels, hidden.
I wanted to sleep, in the most innocent leg
But she kept travelling, everywhere, everywhere.