the warm breath of the shehnai,
seeps in through the keyholes
of a padlocked past,
falling in pasty layers on the blue tiled floor;
I tiptoe around the high notes,
saccharine drenching my arms,
lilting echoes smudged
by discordant footprints;
outside this forgotten door,
thick fog gnaws at the trees,
the smoggy outline of its colourless crown
nodding to the liquid rhythm;
He asks if roses opened their red frocks wide,
to be embraced by the soapy mist;
if rainbows, like satin ribbons,
are tied to still-damp sunshine plaits;
the evening like a painted matriarch
pulls on a wrinkled black dress,
gathering the haze into her folds,
questions like rhinestones on her seams;
His voice stretches like a limbo bar,
the night crawls under, her back bent,
He asks how the wind that cranes its neck
remembers tunes from years gone by;
if the dark songs in my eyes
are shadows cast by a future light,
where music rides rainbow-tailed waves
drifting in an ironed sky.
the notes flutter in patterned drifts,
past windows unbuttoned from time,
he asks if I have learnt to connect
the silent dots on their swaying hips.
THOUGHT PURGE 