Beloved, so much around us was remarkable,
I forgot to mention I was in love with you.
While fires rose in me and boulders exploded,
I mistook it for the tenacity of constipation.
My vanity, my bastion of resilience gave away
to white hairs & chalky scars when you left.
Besides, I only call it love to quarantine
the helplessness any ambiguity can cause.
It’s embarrassing to admit I have dreamt
about crashing your wedding, then eloping
with someone else. I know, I know.
It isn’t something I expected of me too.
There were days when news of you breathing
far far away was enough for me not to stop
breathing. At least not from my own
perpetration. I must tell you I’m coming to visit
this fall. For the liquids in my joints prefer
vulnerability only in a climate of moderation.
Even now shy seas of green celestial rot
claw at my shores every night a moon carelessly
disrobes. I have already made a note to hide a moon
in my underwear. Glowing like a ball of deep
goodness, trying to make the animals in me
worthy of you. Don’t you remember: how en route
to the Lord’s asylum, we strutted along, your hand
in mine. How the stars glanced at us, my neon
crotch. And in that moment I knew what
to do―from the light I compelled from their zodiac
lamps, I slanted into a shaft of brilliant pheromone.
But the planets never understood this― I only did such
a thing so that the stars wouldn’t look at you. Did you?

Satya Dash’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Passages North, Cosmonauts Avenue, The Florida Review, Pidgeonholes, Glass Poetry, 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 @satya43.