breathless

by NINA BHATT

as if the world never rose from its last yoga pose
but dashed a sullen head against the floor
and left it there
how much more can the dry earth stretch
who can tell by the koel’s croak
when the big gray cloud will be built
though we know the same dark hand and eye
that builds the bungalow in the sky
scrapes a nest of dew and gravel
down in the salt-worn wastelands

as if all the cactus’s celibate ways
led to a single sigh expressed
a June bloom in its top-knot
is this how the summer adds
aesthetics to injury and leads us
not into temptation but towards rage,
then among the thorns the sparrows adore
love is made of the wooden toy sort
balancing pieces of pine and teak
  wings varnished to set off grain
their breaking away in pegs and chips

somewhere a carpenter who cannot turn off his electric saw
but crazed by the scent of wood shavings
draws plank after plank to lay
on the deck of an ark he knows
is never destined to meet flood
let alone ocean let alone lake
unless you count the mirage of roads
the clarified butter of tar freshly poured
with its dusting of sand to simulate
streams black and molten
 what would Noah have done about
the onslaught of cities
who is to take note of the soles of shoes
petrified in the crossing, all our hooves
does no one marvel at the spoon embalmed
a plastic mollusk fossilized with plastic straws

a tiger on wings the woodpecker
exults at himself revealed
in glass and steel up on the fourth floor panes
who is to explain that glass is not to be drilled
but to be smashed with a stone
the size of a new potato, the kind
meant for crisps, large and white
and sliced into ellipses, deep fried trellises
will someone re-direct the bird to
a big boled copper-pod please, ask him
to solder the hour to its perch
throwing sparks that blind
to find for the coppersmith some
tedious tidying of seconds, on and on
for the magpie robin a twig from which
to stream his shrill cooker-whistle
signaling his readiness to set up home
even in the slums of high summer

from the switchboard it’s time to extract
the carcasses of two geckos who mated
  for life after death, ticking a brief romance
among the batteries in the wall clock
did no one inform them
 ‘trespassers will be electrocuted’
who is to police these porn stars
that cause our fans to die
our computers to sleep the sleep of
innocents, our mobiles to give up the app,
lest they corrupt the incorruptible
workings of a wire lest they unite against power
 in a case of geckos against the state of our minds
or something