once your smile peeled away from its address
it roamed around your body as free as ration.
as i stood in the line to accept my sack of pills
i felt as if i was waiting for a prison call.
who'd call me at times like this? i saw your smile
hiding between the seconds it took for your blood
to course back uptube after the drip was over.
i would've caught it, like fire, if i didn't have to
call the nurse. i would've caught it if the doctor
had told us what i told the nurse: it's over.
the first thing i thought when i heard and
the first thing you said when i could hear you
used the same words but meant different things:
it should've been over, i should've died.
remember the egg carton you once ashed in
and it caught fire? remember my mother burning
the mattress on which she dreamt she was burning?
sometimes i think i'm still trying, barefoot,
to stamp it out, without catching fire.
~ ajay
8/6/2024
revised version published in The Bombay Literary Magazine
