Here are my wrists— turn them open. 

Here, my travelled fingers, all their life 

growing green for your clay basin:  

 

neem, tulsi, the earth they reach  

into and out of, into, and out of— 

 

here is my fistbloom, and there, inside  

music’s memory box, our first monsoon; 

the night husked open above us and needled 

 

with stars. The moon: a wish in its well. 

My heart awash with the song of a thousand 

silver bells— take what I know of giving.  

 

There is a country I come from, and a God I return to.  

 

In the land where they meet, there is no word 

for what we are; so I may love you and belong 

only to your bread and root?  

 

Mehbooba. Meri nashili dua.  

Teri dastak yeh dil ki dhadkan,  

teri awaaz andheri khamoshi ki halchal.  

 

Take my hands— my feral birds.  

There will be no more tombs for this love; 

for that which has only come to dance
before the dirge, before taking wing—