By Kanishka Tyagi
His name is a curfew
in the night of a country.
A letter that writes itself
in the hurry of turning into ash.
I try to hold on to his name
each time I speak it,
it melts away into the history of nouns,
a flake of ice on the tongue.
There are so many things
we don’t notice in our lives.
“For instance,” I ask him,
“where did the nails you bit off
in the morning disappear?”
His silence is a gunshot
fired at a distance.
His silence-
a war ground,
many lovers died in.
The words that fail to reach him
go astray in midair.
They abandon meaning,
become wind in the night,
chasing stray dogs.
“I am afraid of your absence,”
I say, loud enough for him to know
what I mean.
“Everyone goes missing in this country,”
he replies.
In the end, there is a parting.
He says, “Take care,”
before dissolving into silence.
I whisper,
“You too,”
to his ghost.