That night the first rains had been
storming the houses, their coastal fury
striking against the walls and windows.
I don’t remember what she said,
but I was on the corridor, empty except
the sound of the rains and wishes.
My feet walked the corridor
endlessly, moving towards
the room, moving away.
The night shifted, hour by hour,
the rains increased, the nearby houses
standing like witnesses to a distant fear.
A long time later, I stepped inside the room,
where she sat on my bed. Blue, transparent,
her body flowing inside her like sea water.
I walked nearer, quietly sat beside her.
She was looking into me as if
I couldn’t be anyone but myself.
Quietly, I curled my arm around her,
throughout imagining the many ways
to hold an absence. Fear was so near!
And suddenly, the words, “I feel so afraid!”
I had hardly heard them before something
twined and twisted around me like a lover.
I carried her to the adjoining room where we lay
on a safer bed, each folded around the other like
leaf and bud. The night and the rains were there.
Bibhu Padhi has published ten books of poetry. His poems have appeared in distinguished magazines. throughout the English-speaking world.
