From Letters to Inamorato by Jagari Mukherjee

As You Read Shahid To Me

For Inam

One winter evening 

listening to you read

Shahid to me, I light a candle 

that smells of floral bouquets.

There is no snow in the city.

I, unwell in the absent frost,

dream of your body's blanket

as you feed me words

like trees whose leaves turn 

emerald and onyx.

(I have no strength in my limbs.)

I am yours to sketch in an old journal;

you blend me in watercolors while

the brushes mix gold and green

to stir up shimmer—

your Aphrodite, your concubine.

Your woman of emerald and onyx.

Your winter evening is where the sky 

is cold like Shahid's ice palace; 

you warm me like a fireplace 

of logs and ancient stone.

I, reassured, sleep in the soft bed

of your voice.

Note: Shahid - Agha Shahid Ali

(First published in Flora Fiction)

The Letters

1

The moon is a glass.

I place, at its bottom,

a turquoise bound in 

latticed silver…

You tell me, Inamorato,

that promises don't 

wax and wane.

2

The sun offers a pitcher of wine.

Let us drink then, Inamorato,

the new gold together.

3

My sister embroiders

blue flowers with satin leaves.

Chain stitch and lazy-daisy.

Teach me, I whisper to her--

in every chain

my fingers are bound in thread

where each tinted weave

on the light cotton spread

is a letter to Inamorato.