REALLY

the insipidity of my domestic evenings
no color even in the shadow
washed Ashok* leaves
and serrated banana heavy
with this ungainly city

but if I were to live
on your hill alone
without hills anywhere
the committee would
buy sticks to drive away cows

and there is the other question of being bored
with savants and pilgrims
as they laugh or weep or dramatize
and promise in the give and take
there will be love as lips join
and tongues explore passion
in the esophagus

the inadequacy of breasts
amazes me
how children drink from such infantile nipples
but this is fashion
this is the latest curling of pubic hair
plucked eyebrows and fingernails torn in dirt
now that we have our harvest in

light the lamp and many sticks of incense
together
let the sandalwood hide itself
in the forest of basil
and let monkeys trapeze
this is the time of the day
when babies cling on to udders
and yet journey far

for drip they have holes in plastic tubes
and wherever sunlight gets a chance
it plays hot and naughty on the tallow mud
so marvelously yellow
leafless basil is colorless
or else basil is opaque green
I breathe you basil
without fully understanding your
flung out hands and feet leafless
what deep expression
in this forest of sexless passion

* a tree, not me


-Ashok Niyogi


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