Tagore Variations
3
I close my eyes, waiting
for the steps I missed last night—you
walk secretly through July monsoons.
My ear low to the ground, I listen
for a steel rail’s warning. But the only
train, a boom of empty cars, clatters
through a dream its one package:
my casket, and taken to a stranger’s
funeral. The rain has swelled, already
rushed to violence and settled the dust
that you kicked up where I could’ve
followed. In this city of new houses
the shutters have closed, and I look
for candles. Don’t let us pass alone
through these streets—my door opens
to the quieter vigil. If she whom I love
and want not to love comes over, you’ll
come with her—you always do,
though I’ve trouble seeing you there.
In downpours, I squint to sharpen
lines between myself and the passersby
who run for cover. And tonight, this
blurred loneliness, her jeweled face, runs
through the masks a city shares.