Today, I billow breaths of ache into a porcelain jar.

& every grain rots from the cerecloth of burnt clay.

 

& this is how I become an ennui of empty things. 

Say silence carries the weight of an atlas on the back 

of an acediast. & I am that carrier. 

 

Here, nothing comes close to the culling drag 

of happy memories stowed into the marsupium 

of amanuensis, of sunflowers withering into moony

blackheads, of sorrow translating into newer tongues,

of silhouettes waltzing atop the ridges of a halo lip.

 

& I, a baptizand wallowing in the muddle of teary mantras

at the masjid. I, April fuchsia juicing nocturnal nectars 

in the garden of gloomy fruits, seek light in the shadow

of a murk ode.