Again

Farhad Anklesaria

She shapes the shells into a tiny thorn

And scratches blood in words along a line,

Avoid the sea of foam, for she is born

From Uranus and the Florentine.

This girl so far away she tenders me,

To thoughts of drums and tin and talks of plague,

I send her screens of flowers, a story of a tree,

Bemba’s forgotten mistrial at The Hague. 

I climb her legs and rest my lips upon

Her. I feel her skin like melting milk

That I will never drink. Oh Monsieur Swann,

Perhaps your mind was made of simple silk.

Zipporah of the distant, tired beauty,

Refuses me to do my sacred duty. 

•••
Farhad Anklesaria has been a teacher in New Delhi since 2012. He is currently working on a book of poems that combine formal structured verse with vers libre. He graduated from Yale College in 2010.