Once you’d kissed me, I dashed into each morning, 
calamitous. Knowing as a stone

skipped — grazing the first river of my body. 
That was my language, then. Rivers

and how to contain
the rumor of your hands.

Memory a lotus leaf to carry 
home your gaze
                                                               bedewing my center.

A fish snuck in. It flapped against the dark leaf of my belly 
before rippling into the world.

You asked me what it was. I swam upward and bit your lip.

You knew.

On the tail end of dusk’s straw-mouth, we lay 
thatched by grasshopper wing and sandhya deepam
lit in the distant huts of our eyes.                      Somewhere,

an elephant broke its fetters. Your thumb stroked mine.

Language slicked oil dripping off
evening’s wick     smoothing baby hairs
and scrambled back inside. 
                                                             A child-god stayed up
wiping moon-glass clean. It misted up again,   like a whisper.

Or desire.
I couldn’t tell. I had already named the rivers after you.

I couldn’t tell     മദം from മതം
even as a fish floated up
                                                                     -side down.