Pigeon Flying

Pigeon Flying

The train is always about to arrive,
I tell myself watching pigeons in the morning—

They circle once, twice and then again
just as the snow starts to fall; and this,
I want to say, is Delhi, is Chawri Bazar—
Faisal, somewhere in 2011, says, This,
here is all poetry. I see it only now, Faisal.
This, here, is the winter—binding skin to
the current coming in. And I, now addicted
only to pigeon flying, have counted our losses,
measuring them in inches of heavy snow.

Get away from that heart, I had wanted
to tell you just as you left on a train
that morning—half with pity, half bewildered—
I want nothing to do with it.