Bed bug nights

Accustomed to Odomos
this tanned skin of mine
these days
cannot tolerate anything
neither a little bit of cold water
not even some warm water.

Yesterday night

a mistaken vehicle roaring past
a dog whining in a wrong note
sighs of copulation through the wall muffled by pillows
the pissing flush
none of these could awaken me

But a tingle under the back.

(Actually, such a tingle is felt any time throughout the day
for example:
At a crucial moment during the meeting, a tingle near the cock;
apprehensive of what the colleague might think
edgy and nervous,
we ‘adjust’ it unnoticed)

Nothing like that at this moment.

a bunch of bedbugs
were romancing
were fighting
were chatting
sitting quietly
making love
one scrawny
one brownish black / rust coloured
one lifeless
one bloodless bedbug
one of them walking oddly

cribbing
grumbling
rancid
disorderly
itching

a night, seven years ago

the old bow-woman from the old mansion,
we cracked her spine
and lay her on the pyre.
For her loose dangling skin
there was no support.
she used to shave her head off till the end
the high of childhood,
it would always peek
through the end of the saree that covered her head.
If we asked her to take off the veil,
blushing, her rough fingers
would caress our cheeks like peacock feathers.

Through the pitch black inner room / maazghar
was visible only white hair
like Husain’s Mother Teresa.

No one came forward
to cover her head
with the saree’s end.
But by the time
She was placed on the pyre,
The walls of the inner room / maazghar
Were coated with endless black spots.

The bedbugs that had spent a lifetime with her
Were now mourning for her.

a night ten years ago

spacious verandah
Under a blanket
her foot would be my hand
my hand would be her foot
holding her tight
I slept glued to her, rolling and stretching.

accompanying us, buffalos, bulls and
the calf licking fingers
ticks, mites, bedbugs
extinguished oil lamps
blackened lanterns.
kerosene smeared over the body
to allow the bedbugs to saunter freely.
Just close to the ear lobes
the heady perfume of a crushed bedbug.

•

Accustomed to Odomos
this tanned skin of mine
these days
cannot tolerate anything
neither a little bit of cold water
nor a little bit of warm.