The Insomniac’s Love Poem
never has a bed in it.
You ask when evening fades
if only the past can be wholly lived,
if I loved you is more memorable
than I love you? But what do I know
of tense— I do a thousand
things a day yet have nothing to show for it
except the sheerness of brine.
The shyness of my body’s silvering
treasure fades daily at twilight.
I dilly dally in your shadow river
until the last of the moon descends
upon our conversation at dawn,
incomplete without the finishing
touches of barbaric splendor. I see light
unveil parched lines on your sewn
lips like dew stripes painted by the Lord
on a ruddy rose. In voluble tiredness,
in the uncensored joy of nudity, no secret
is revealed but still I remain hopeful
of a useful life. That keeps me earthy
as if the hope of happiness is indeed
happiness. One pair of lips wrapped
around another is another swirling eye
of moisture but my voice slams the door
shut on anything that might resemble a kiss.
With dogs on the street, the first inspectors
of musty sunrise, I simultaneously howl
to the best of sleeping memory but your hand
on my cresting chest like light’s first slant
across a dank room, renders me incapable
of returning to utter darkness.
Satya Dash’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Wildness, Passages North, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Florida Review, Lunch Ticket, The Cortland Review, Prelude amongst others. Apart from having a degree in electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has been a cricket commentator too. His work has been twice nominated for the Orison Anthology. He spent his early years in Odisha, India and now lives in Bangalore. He tweets at : @satya043
