Mine

in which a pisces mars locates itself

there is yoghurt 
dolloped on the vision board
and thick, hand-knitted moments
patchworked like bright, crushed 
foods on a thali
and syrup
and you, of course 

everything I want is viscous, including 
the stretched tease of emptiness
bang in the middle of my wish
the vacuum of unread future
discards me right here
now moment
choiceless but to reel me in
so I do not wonder too long 

who you are
what you have been reading
who you took care of today
and if you will ever not be 
nebulous 
like pigment in my iris
forming an entrance
but not in it

my days, though
are wonderful without you

for this, I suggest cloves
friends who are large within their lives 
ginger, spinning
a religion of hips and rhythms
beetroot
running middle and ring fingertips 
up and down your own leg
ghee
staring at the dips in things
murmuring good morning god
into the coffee
cultivating dangerous imagination
a spreadeagle mind's eye
eclipsing disbelief 
with the steeled anticipation 
of dreams fulfilled
and stewed berries 

I have tumbled down the brambled slope 
of backward youth 
into giggling capitulation
to my own beauty
which is a glade in the night
which is a change in density
the acknowledgement comes in sighs
puffed-cheeked and at a loss
like a farmer shaking her head 
at the work she loves 
but is too tired for
huffing, rolling up sleeves
before mucking out 
devoted 

the residue of my shrinking days
back when I was flat
adhesive to walls and adorations
what I scratched and flicked off myself
to try to sculpt a spirit
went nowhere
recirculated as dust
settled secretly
thick coat on my pleural fluid
sickness unnoted for its 
constancy

last night the moon was casual
no explanation in her fullness
she simply dragged me
my too-clean sleeve
in an uphill figure-eight of 
remembering:

a man who hoarded the air
who couldn't know me as a 
something
who was instruction:
to gulp and not be

and the way I eroded
and developed techniques
and the way my ideas hunched
and my cares hung their heads
and my voice split like dry wood
and my passions' concussion

how he blew out the flame of my ethic
and the selfishness, he called it
of singing just for me
and surveillance 
bored into my leisure
and vigilance
chronic and dermal
and his resentment, a child
when I didn't want my face touched
and all the space there should have been
to swirl, to suffer
in my own home

so I will not
proclamations sputter from the night
the words are a blinding headlight
and I walk shut-eyed

I will not, the resolve is 
sobbed trance 

I will not 
be quiet at my gagging
give up solidity and
leave my impetus to dry
while those who would unperson me
accessorise, salve, parent themselves
with my gaze, which is my heart
which is for all life and no one 
more than any other —
which he never did comprehend

one wrong look at
my clustering
the convergent boundary 
of my life's odds, and I will 
hiss in the tradition of the trees
from sole and groin
to the ally decomposers

we will fission a chorus 
to scald and trip 
whomever dares lick lips 
at my limberness and
the carcass of survival method
will sink in peace 
goddammit

trespass yourself 
before attempting to cross my 
non-size
I am without circumference
I am all the distances I stared off into 
while you laid bitter nothing
across the household cheek
add to this
the sum of all daydreams 
a weak ego has ever been left for 
right under its nose

glazed over, you tell me where 
to place my feet and love 
and I do the opposite
resembling petulance
gladly, I will look like anything 
resultant from extreme 
tenderness

so there is yoghurt on the vision board
and my ribs pressed into someone
whose gaze, which is their whole body
generates an equal softness
and anarchy to mine

my life is wonderful without them
I am a squeezing motion
life rises as juice to my waist
being is a slow wade
and there is always time

one in every twenty blinks
is elongated 
to make room for god 
who flirts up at me 
from poems and my feet

phenomena glide gracefully
past need of reason
desire is too engorged 
with self-trust
to want justifying

all I have to shrug off 
is nonchalance
everything else I devour
behind the thin cotton curtain 
of my form

yes, I am quiet
but silence me 
and I convulse in
the magma and tide
gentle as seen by the birds 
thundering as heard by the crust

to overwhelm all openings
to be a good invasion
and expedite right rot
with tight, kind, destructive 
focus

and I recede with give
suppler than should be possible
having protected myself 
on no-one's behalf but mine —
a word watching 
over me

Kali by Nandalal Bose