Scarred Nights

You tiptoe into her room
every night while your wife
treads the land of Nod.
through the shadows of the night,
you climb into her bed and
do things to her ever so quietly
that you could almost hear the vine,
wrap its tangles around
the wooden fences outside;
and then, like a snake slides
into his hole, you burrow
yourself next to your wife
as if the night had just begun.

while you slip into dormancy
in the warmth of your crib,
she harks to the hands of the striking
clock tarrying for morning-
when open playgrounds and hours
of hopscotch will fade the scent
of his sweaty under clothes,
when the laughter of friends
will bury glimpses of his body
moving against her own
almost like in a trance.

one at a time, scarred nights
she survives while owls hoot
from bhomora* tree tops and
fireflies light up the endless line
of forests behind her cottage.

*Bhomora (as called in Assam) is a large tropical deciduous tree from the Combrataceae family.

*First published in Danse Macabre.