symptoms - a poem

I shiver like a December night in
dreamless sleep, half-blind eyes,
legs like landslides, lips
smeared with ice.

A siren pierces through my skin,
bones like glass, deep blue,
vacant.

How does the body withstand?

There are vacant park benches on
quiet evenings, calling the doves by
their names. A Gulmohar tree
drenches the road in red petals,
clogging the city’s arteries.

How does the city withstand?

These forests once smelt like seasons.
These fields now burn like skin.

Why does the body withstand?

Young men tremble
like young waves, standing in
endless queues in hospitals,
recalling symptoms that shouldn’t
exist.

Old women hover like sterile clouds,
outside post-offices awaiting mail,
from their sons abroad
long ago dead.

Gulmohar flowers rot in alcohol
bottles in apartment buildings.

Some bodies will always withstand.

They whisper like drizzles. They don’t
talk about moonlight. Or the
folktales in every wrinkle of their skin.

How long will this body withstand?

New Delhi grows like a wound does,
edges dissolving, pores sweating,
smothered heartbeats, chants,
appearing, disappearing.