Departure Lounge

The woman at the counter –
lipstick, the colour of blood
skin, the colour of honey –
pries open my baggage

‘It’s only words’, I say
A whirlpool of thoughts,
incessant words:
dark
dense
raw.
Stripped bare

She pastes a piece of paper on it
‘It’s heavy’, she says.
The label says ‘fragile’

My baggage
proud and fragile
travels alone on a pulsating
metallic belt.

Heavy; because he had never cared

Meera Nair reads Departure Lounge (Video Link)

Kodai

Droplets of ice cold rain
On ice cold water
How flimsy our boat
If I leaned over
To taste the lake
It would topple
And we would all drown
In the unpolluted drinking water

An old man
Washes plates
Behind him on the wall
Stretches a map of his country
The soup turns cold
But not the pride in his eyes
Dalai Lama watches over

The mountains
Echo every word I say
I whisper your name
In return there is only silence

We cycle in circles
Yet I lose my way
Horse dung
Cheap mufflers
Green grass
Panting for breath
I come back

Words
Pieces of plum
Red
Undigested
Throw up
As we drive down the winding mountains.

Sinners

Sinners we
Into our guilt ridden bellies
We pour the golden liquid of resurrection

This Heaven and Hell
That we build
In the Kingdom within
The thorns that we step on
The wounds that we put on display

Look at him there on the swing
Free of his cross
Full of the glee of a child

If only we learned
To set our Gods free.

Tea

How desolate your tea cups
Tall
Hefty
Empty

Lay your head against my womb
Drink from my breasts
To your heart’s content

He who made Woman
Made her a perennial river

Allow me
To make you
A cup of tea