Before The Afterlife
1
Before our afterlife, I begin to envision
its warm-hued, easy-to-clean furniture
in the living room with its kitschy water-feature
in a corner, plastic koi frozen in mid-swim;
the altar where you will bow and reiterate
our gratitude to your cherished deities;
our bedroom blessed by the faint chords
of wind chimes above our door each morning
when we come awake in each other’s arms,
the shelves where our books – mine on art
and literature, yours on politics and history –
would have found a home; the balcony
that is half the size of the apartment, weighed
down by potted plants I must never fail
to water, its roof extended for shade, a pair
of parallel deckchairs angled toward the sun.
2
I am lost in this dream, this waking present.
After finishing the laundry, you are curled up
on the sofa, watching a Hindi film on television;
the last scene induces a tear in your eye.
Sunday. Soon I will wake from my nap, hungry.
The film is over. You walk out into the balcony
to taste the fading light on your face.
Across the street, there is a church. The singing
of a hundred tuneless voices thirsty for calm.
Time to come back in, to stir me with a kiss
to the head, a slow hand through my hair.
Everything is different. Everything is the same.
“Quick, go and shower,” you will tell me. I will
pretend to resist the ebb of your voice easing me
out of slumber. I will raise my arms to stretch,
so you may touch the exposed skin of my torso.
3
Yes, we will fight. As with other things, of this
we can be certain. Sorry is, once again, insufficient.
Change and every knot in the air unravels.
Beyond why and whatever is a point in the road
when it would be safe, at last, to cross. I do the dishes,
as you wipe the table, these chores stitching the fissure
that has formed. Then come the questions: Are you…?
Can we…? Out of nowhere, like luck. Then I am
on the balcony again. You walk out to reach me
and cup my waist in your hands, as if I might spill.
4
What has changed for the two of you?
Everything is different. Everything is the same.
Where did you find those lights?
I am lost in this dream. The lights I did not buy.
How do you split the housework?
The plants are mine alone to water. I do not mind.
Why? Does he not like plants?
He likes what I like. I might not have them after all.
Where did the wind chimes come from?
Bangkok. I was tired, but he walked on in the heat.
Do they keep you awake at night?
We have not moved in yet. They lull me even now.
What do both of you disagree about now?
He wants a transparent kitchen. I want walls, not glass.
Does he love you more than you love him?
I want him to inundate like light from the balcony.
Does he love you more than –?
Yes, that is why I must never leave.
5
What I did not ask to love I love. Like wind chimes.
To facilitate the chi of a home, you tell me.
I imagine chi as a giggling child,
gambolling in and out of every room
to listen closely to each chime when it sounds, briefly,
a shimmering afterthought. I like to believe
your faith in them would make sense,
eventually, even as it is enough to know
you are determined to set the stage of our apartment
for a play of happy endings in countless, interchangeable acts.
For now, allow me to only imagine waking
to that subtle, glowing tune, or dozing
to its lullaby in the dark. When you are off to work
or not yet home, it would be a kiss deep in my ears
when you are not there – a lingering comfort, shiny
echo of feeling, the distant music of stars.
6
Caption appears on screen: Two years later.
Int.: A kitchen not made from glass.
(Cyril enters, holding a spoon. Sheo is standing at the sink, pouring a glass of water.)
Cyril: You sure you don’t want some?
Sheo: Is it vanilla? I only want vanilla.
Cyril: Then never mind.
Sheo: You want water? You should drink some water.
(He holds up a glass.)
Cyril: It’s okay, I don’t want.
Sheo: You didn’t smoke, right?
(Sheo puts the glass in the sink.)
Cyril: Want to smell my breath, my fingers?
(Smiling, he offers his hands.)
Sheo: You don’t love me.
(Sheo takes them and presses the fingers to his upper lip.)
Cyril: I do, I do. So, did I smoke?
(Sheo holds on to his fingers, and closes his eyes. They wait there like that.)
Fade out.
7
On Sundays, we could walk about our home
naked. Who would know, or care to stop us?
Together, we would have to learn how
to stand upright again, arch our backs, care
less if our penises hung out further than they should.
How embarrassed you would look, with
the janeo strung from your left shoulder
to rest on your right hip – the sacred thread
put on you at the temple ceremony
that signalled a boy’s entry into manhood,
that you would never remove, not even during sex.
We could watch Z-TV like this, losing ourselves
in one Bollywood movie after another, my finger
playing the string that crosses just under a nipple
to tangle in the wiry commas of hair risen up
below your navel, while your hand open
and close on my inner thigh. We could even dance
with the balcony as our sun-lit backdrop,
nude as two spirits must be after shaking
off their heavy coats of flesh, their pockets
plump with too much regret and memory.
Nothing left to fear but the unforgotten voices
of our previous, less-than-courageous selves,
haunting our minds as diminishing echoes
of age-old admonishments, soft barks
of prejudice and self-hatred. Two men dancing
naked in their own home, bodies pressed
against each other and swaying unhurriedly
to that unspectacular rhythm, in the light
of an ordinary Sunday afternoon.
8
Where would we display the photos
your sisters took of you, from a smirking boy
to a man in shirt and tie; my handsome executive.
How about the ones our friends took
of us on the couch in each other’s arms,
my head pressed against yours, our legs
in a casual tangle above the floor?
What would my mother say if she came
to visit, only to be assailed by such images
in a pitiless row on the study-room wall,
something else to splinter her delusion
that you and I are nothing more than friends?
Would your colleagues gossip among themselves
after seeing them and pretending not to notice?
Would the braver ones approach us to comment
about the angle the photographer has chosen
to snare our moment of intimacy on film?
And what about your sisters?
(Can you already hear that sigh as it is passed
from one sister to the next; whether in resignation
or acceptance, who can know for sure?)
How good that their parents are not alive
to see this, other relatives would say,
if they would ever come to visit.
How good if we never invite them again,
I would say after they have finally gone home.
9
There is nobody in the apartment.
The apartment has not yet become a home.
The gleaming sofa is unoccupied.
The sliding door to the living room is open,
disclosing some light from the balcony.
No one is watching the news on television
or reading the papers. Look, the fan
is not turned on, but still it turns
upon the urging of an uninvited breeze.
Come into the kitchen. Touch the stove
that has never yielded a flame,
the unopened mouths of empty cabinets,
the muted washing-machine.
Visit the bedroom, but do not lay
down on our bed that is wide enough for two
men to curl up in each other’s arms
or come apart during sleep.
And just outside, the dinner table
set for the company of ghosts, or more
invisible even, for the anticipatory
absence of ourselves, as if the air itself
was beginning to make room for us.
from Like A Seed With Its Singular Purpose
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