I
In times of war
think of contagion.
Violence is contagious
it ruptures through
quite as heartbreak
but not of a kind
you’ve had before.
It empties words of meanings;
It empties conversation of words.
Sometimes a gaze is blank —
it could be cataract,
it could be memory hazed by present.
The clock falls, shatters time
because pain will be
the cyclical pattern of audio recorders
thrust on you, sound-bites of war;
aid for recovery. A bomb splinters,
the sun disappears. On blackout nights,
the siren sings as birds.
No, no longer war amputates you.
It infuses within, a slow drug
releases itself in your blood.
You think you are defiant,
but you reflect them.
See, I was warning you
about contagion.
II
In this war
and non-war
and the not knowing
if we are at war
or non-war
Is this the funeral
of a martyr
or a fugitive
or both?
Always both.
Is there
in this war
a Good Lord
eyeless above
Or is S/he there
only in us?
In this war
and non-war
and not knowing
if we are at war
or non-war
How do we know
if we are inhaling defeat
Or exuding victory
III
Tonight we are tendrils
and think of
each other a tree
I star gazed
into the constellation of moles
glittering dark in your skin
Tonight we are many things
Tonight we are many things
What dreams and divination
should we wait for?
The war is already
warm with blood
There is nothing beyond
the shrapnel for us
Tonight we are wounds and smoke
acquiescent with the making of fire.
Soibam Haripriya ’s poems appear in the anthology Centrepiece: New Writing and Art from Northeast India, published by Zubaan
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