INVISIBLE BOMBAYS
We left somewhere a life we never found, Customs and gods that are not born again…
–Dereck Walcott.
You in your blue lattice houses
Should not listen to streamers of my steps
Maps of my arrivals and departures
Weight of my Cinq rivieres
Each one of my sealed similes
Each one of my uncouth accents
Refuses to sweeten in the center of your fire
Each one of my asphalt voices refuses to acquire
Your grammar your spire your tree rustling your Natural History
Your soft hands plucking café Colombien and Earl Grey tea
Your child-like blink when in your land
Manuscripts of might are overwritten in white
And the other Scheherazade is slaughtered every night
You say it’s simply the illusion of dusty smoke
The work of cold parka winter
That makes me spin obscene graffiti
On the while navel of your Nagasaki Raj deity
So, before my wretched double-helix pales
And your roots dissolve my thousand and one tales
I must speak
Of this time of that place
Of that time of this place
I must speak
Before even dreams wear at heart francais ou anglais
And still my city within my invisible Bombay
For your wild boys have discovered all harbours
For there is no return to the soil of my saffron sighs
