City of Dragon Mattresses
At the vanishing edge of memory
there exists a city in a forest of herbs.
You have no reason but to believe me —
there is no name for this city.
No shoes or cycles here for anyone —
aging saints walking barefoot on the streets,
lined with hurricane lanterns flashing hibiscus- smiles.
There are women, there are children, but
for some unknown reason, everyone sleeps in the vermilion sunlight.
When it rains in the night,
the city turns into a silver pendant in the nose of a spider,
silently weaving dragon-mattresses for dark goddesses.
I open my eyes, I see
zebra-eyed silk-route traders gambling with clay toys in my room.
Saffron light lingers —
I only think of her when I think of my city.
Why is it that my sight has worsened only in geography?
I take out my school atlas from the cupboard and
search this city, window by window, everywhere…
***
Snow Leopard in Patna
Summer at the door, my eyes lantern-lit —
I see a snow leopard in the backyard of Golghar,
pillar-less memories of famine.
There is no hint of calamity in the city —
labourers rinse their teeth with silver dust at daybreak,
preparing to swallow the grains without tongue.
Where are all the dogs in the city?
They are silent, perplexed —
The snow leopard pretends to be real,
like the mimic men of the new world,
faces of a different complexion,
biting off bitter saltpetre from the remains of earth.
Leaving behind endless queues of trucks, buses, and
mannequins of vendors,
bargaining with river-bandits over prices
of pomegranates and lady fingers,
the snow leopard gently ambles across the busy street,
like a banished monk —
an artist’s sketch of aging stone, a language of wonder.
Chewing Bengali paan, mixed with spices and lime,
runway girls follow him to the town hall,
for a symphony of molten desires.
Suddenly, it starts snowing in the fugitive daylight;
the snow leopard hides into my invisible skin—
licking the decaying fragments of my father’s old house.
How can I taste the violence of my own memory?
Desperate for the feast of prayers in the granary,
I love her madly on the spiral glass staircase,
ascending and descending —
until she opens the museum gates for her lovers without eyes.
# Golghar in Patna is a large, pillar-less granary built in 1786 for famine relief in Bihar.
