Kolam

Everyone wants the lightning, not the lamp,the one wild night that outshines all the rest,the kind of love that burns down what it lovesand leaves its ash still warm across the chest.

Stay for the kolam, bent in the blue dark,the rice-flour line redrawn at every dawn,walked over by the whole indifferent streetand set back down, and set back down, and drawn.

I’ll keep no ledger. Let the counting go —who called, who came, who carried all the weight.I’ll love the unlovely version of you too,the one with no excuse who makes me wait.

I’ll stay until the rain has turned the streetto the smell of earth, and then a little more —a weekday evening, nobody watching,the staying is the only vow I swore.

Be the small hour nobody writes a song for.Let the world keep its beautiful disaster.I’ll take the lamp, the threshold, the cold tea,and every ordinary morning after.