I take my cue of love

From commercial advertisements,

Furtively-read women's magazines,

And the husky Bollywood songs of my adolescence.

The senses are schooled to respond

To the rise and fall of quivering glances,

To the gradual inching together of expectant bodies,

To the vibrant play of fingertips on palpably throbbing flesh.

I long for the astounding riot of colors -

Red, orange, yellow, gold – the kaleidoscope bursting open,

Raining its ostentatious patterns in dappled waves of virgin silk,

On senses already smoking like camphor on flame.

The night becomes a young damsel waiting to be fulfilled.

Her luxuriant darkness becomes the mattress of my longing.

My dutifully-knotted morning hair urges the reciprocity of desire

To be set free in wild tresses of self-conscious abandonment.

You only turn upon your back and sleep.

Perhaps you take your cue from a different source.

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