the coffee-stain looks devilish in its laughter,
while the muslin tablecloth tumbles over itself
in the roaring delight of an invisible audience.
i am embroidered in red and deep cerulean,
looking at the passage of time through a key-
-hole, which is jammed with promises never
made. i know that my nerves pale and dilute
in comparison to your word-while capillaries
that shout & shout against my walled silences.
“it isn’t really that hard to hide,” you say briefly,
you smirk to the quivering of my voice,
(the throat-bell still ringing in the wind).
i will pick up the plotholes and yield to your words,
if you would only promise that this was never
a dream or a pigeon’s hope, cut by the Chinese string
of a wayward kite.
i am a diffused lamp-light, figuring & disfiguring
every stitch and flip like an old game of playing cards,
that i still cannot begin to envisage or win.
i still grin like the Joker to your objection.
i can still bury my head to hide my sins,
all that i’ve got to lose when it is dark.
.
© Anmol Arora
Day 5
(Inter)National Poetry Month
HA's Place 