Poems by Tishani Doshi 

Song to Kamadeva
After Andal’s Nacciyar Tirumoli
 
i
 
January—I have been busy
with the yellow trumpet flowers.
They dance uselessly, slivers of rapture.
The dishes need washing, I know,
but sunbirds are diving in and out
of dens of gold, their purple wings
are soft nets, intimate with the leaves.
Their beaks poised to receive nectar.
 
ii
 
O churner of hearts, inflamer, maker
of desire, there are days I grow tired
of digging. I imagine someone else
will tend the hem, the torn sleeve.
Someone else will pry open the earth’s
jaw for her evening pill. If you bring no rain
the cane will not grow. All night our
throats are in constant need of shelter.
 
iii
 
Thrice a day I go out to join
the women of the Bagh who’ve left
their homes with placards. The flower-
tips of your arrows have pierced their lips.
Their longing—not for sandalwood— 
but Inquilab. Is this how spring arrives?
A sudden wind blows, and all the trees
begin their blossoming. 
 
 
iv
 
Listen: What made you leave
behind your grahasti? Your kitchen,
your children. The answer they gave
was stunning. My daughter asked me,
Mother today they barged into the library
and beat up the students. Tomorrow,
what if they break into my school 
and beat us up there?
 
v
 
O flower-weaponed god. Moon-face:
snowy radiance. I was a woman
who lived inside a rock. Now, I lease
a room to a poet who doesn’t know
the price of milk. After a day in the field,
we sit around the fire to sing. It is our way
of letting death know we mean to hold on,
to keep the threshold warm.
 
vi
 
This anthill has grown into a palace.
Wine. Moonlight. Mangoes. Cuckoos.
I never wanted to be a fruit-bearing tree,
but even I found my way into the forest.
All day I watch a squadron of tiger-striped
dragonflies dizzy in delight. The goats
have been so restless. Evening
when it arrives, is quick-footed, awash. 
 
vii
 
In the beginning, when darkness
was hidden by darkness, when you arose,
O flower-armed one, was there a book
in which they wrote your name? The women
of the Bagh have turned their feathery
longing into a vow, which is a song,
which is to ask why must we stand in line
with documents to show we belong?
 
viii
 
Each year I approach the shore
to forsake a layer of skin. O creator
of eternal bewilderment, no matter
how much I pray, the pot of water
does not turn into a fountain of youth.
We are all either lotus-born, sweat-born
egg-born, first-born, twice-born. Only you— 
Kama of the topaz skin—are mind-born.
 
ix
 
Desire was the first seed of the mind.
Then came the poets, so my poet friend
says. And you—rogue god, with the smell
of elephant rut about you, with that hairy
pelt—door to your chest. All night
I beat and beat it, to enter that inner
refuge, chamber of pearl, but even
you, it seems, would abandon me.
 
x
 
So many years I waited for love
mired in mud. The trysts in bamboo
groves, the rooms of disappointment.
A traveller in the desert cannot know
from which direction the fragrance
blows. There I was, tying strips
of cloth around tree trunks.
Then you. Only you. Always you.

 

Tishani Doshi publishes poetry, fiction and essays. Since her debut, Countries of the Body, which won the Forward Prize for best first collection (2006), she has sought to find joineries between the lyric and the political. Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (2017) headlined the All About Women Festival at the Sydney Opera House and was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes Award. Her novels, The Pleasure Seekers (2010) and Small Days and Nights (2019), have been shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Prize, Tata Fiction Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. A God at the Door, her most recent collection of poems, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize 2021. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
 
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