that night i was a moving finger keeping the score
printed on a torpedo. it sung of an image i'd see later
in the ICU: a stag leaking out of you with crayon antlers
and graphite eyes. after shifting to the room i went out
to get you idli and watermelon juice crossing roads
through a drizzle of pamphlets curled like an umbrella.
if i'm really an artist why can't i draw blood.
all my first drafts—mixed with varnish, arson,
and structures of feeling—smell like mogras
crushed on bus seats. maybe i'm not an artist
but an orbit in search of a center that cannot hold me
like you do. there must an animal that runs away
from the scent of mogras. i'd like it to invite me
like dignity invites violence. i don't want to lose
any more. when you haul me up with a poem
what buckles underfoot is gravity and i splatter
on the freehand city and i don't know what to do
with my hands to make them mean something.
take another look: the only difference between song
and silence is who gets to swallow the words.
~ ajay
11/3/2025
first published in Poems India
