Road to Tawang

The road is a wound
barely able to fit us
within boulders that bleed
mud, roots, rain.

We, who are cursed,
earthbound, denied
the delight of stone, see
the mountains bend and arc away.

Sun and snow perform
an eccentric time-game.
Mocking tricks
to explain what rocks stand for:

Ageing and ageless–mixing
green with grey drought
and flying Buddha colours
with fog fears.

Sessa, Bomdila, Dirang, Sela
and we stop. Sela shocks us
with its swift lake, a herd of yaks,
sliding cold.

The body yields to the mirage
of distance, the pain of sleep.
Eyes die, ears can’t breathe
and noses spew out soul.

Only the road lives and
every sign secretes death.
Even the ones that shout:
Be gentle on my curves.

On Clothes (Lost and Regained)

This was bought
for the dhup-
chhaon weave, this for

its allusion to
the lime of trees, this
for an embrace in a gulmohar

grip, this for a mirrored
hint mislaid in paisley and this
when I was too poor

for embroidery. This I wore
the day we fought,
this when

the fish buttons hooked your eyes,
this pouncing
puma of Shimray’s breath

in grief, this
bead shine of
my arm in Delhi-white,

this looseness of peach print
was shrugged off quickly
only last week.

My Face: II

I carry my face
in my hands
looking

for the marks that made it.

A distant
uncle’s staring eyes
live in mine and we look
at trees and see them laugh.
My nose
part grandmother’s ridge
and two parts
father’s nostrils
is the hanged man that plays
footsie with my fool-mouth.
I inherited

my unsmiling lips
from photoframed ancestors
and from fishermen
crawling in the dark
between rivers
and nets, my skin

the pigment of sweat
and the burn of the sun.
My own pasts

grow on me
like lizard lines
with stalking ticktock tails
and leaf-eyes. The slap
of a twig, the miniature crater
of disease on my nose, your neglect
the dust of moth-wings on my cheeks.