Immigrant

 

Immigrant

The flyover at 6 PM
The window open a crack
A sliver of breeze, draught of smoke

Eagles blotting inky sky
A Rorschach test for rainy evenings

Your sky and mine
somewhere in your city
the sky must paint her toes pink at sunset
Over lakes and shikaras, where tourists come and go

here, she is an old woman
hair greying, left loose
counting the days lost
sunrise

sunset
the flyover at 6 PM
green minarets glisten like the shimmering necks of pigeons
perched on abandoned, wet buildings

Gulmohar flames, not doused by rain
Splashes of color on the easel of sky

like puddles

grey brown
your eyes
in the rearview mirror
touch the reddish brown of mine

red-brown
like tea liqueur
like the mud of my land
that greets you when you arrive at the airport

Like your red sweater riddled with holes
like the gunshot Kashmir sky

like the train signal punching a red hole in the dusk
as we speed by

Like the moon,
yellow moon-face
with dark circles, from waking too many nights

your eyes in the rear view mirror stay awake,
touch the mud-brown of mine