Orange

On Death, Without Exaggeration, Wislawa Szymborska

This morning, super fly! This body, a flute. Night has slipped into song. You have ceased to be two eyes that grow into the surprise of waiting. Sunlight sits on the back of an orange cat’s quiet flame of a mane.

There are so many things I don’t want to tell you*.

not for you. this shimmering thigh of rain. the folded sheaf of a T shirt, peering through a veiled eye. flame. cut out from the inside. shaving by gutted shaving.
and this moment, a cigarette that refuses to go out.

not for you this morning, smouldering with green rivers, unstepped in twice. this hundred rupee note, a bespectacled bribe to time, asking it to slow down. to wait, so that I can go back once again, and wash my face in forgotten streams.

not for you this quivering string, or the wires aroused in electric refrain. smiling medusas, ensnared in a note, waiting to be released.

not for you, this bird of fancy, whisked away in flight, and a thorn in its red flesh. a niggle, and the restlessness of a whirring fan. spitting red flecks, tangerine stains on our omniscient walls.

not for you. this graffiti of the mind.

In the quiet desert, between cement cacti, thirst is a a man looking at the sea on the way back home, humming a lullaby.

You want to hear it again? How eyes gaze into the wilderness.
set fire.
come home.
a cat shores its restlessness in your mind.

*After Richard Siken

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April waits outside the windows, waits for you to throw them open, to ruffle your hair, and breathe. Hope you are finding space to write.

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