Do You Still Dream Of That Night?


Not father in my dreams anymore
but Shahrukh Kahn in that movie,
manly face pinched by that half-pout,

cute as the son whose entreaties
would make his mother
or any woman smile, Shahrukh Kahn

teasing a laugh out from the neighbour's
daughter whom he loves.
Mr Devdas in my bed and not

father upon me, whispering:
Don't worry, don't move, this won't
hurt, ok? No longer

that initial horror, but simply
shock dissipating
quickly into pleasure, an echo

of love numbing the mind, occluding
shame. The first time, I remember,
I failed to cry, because as far

as I could see, that night,
there was no cause, only
a car's passing headlight

piercing the unmetaphorical
dark of a boy's bedroom.
A curious hunger

spent, balled up in tissue paper
he forgot to discard, left on the floor,
the smell of it

staining the air, the present, and
future remembrances
of those long, wakeful hours. Not

Shahrukh, but father
cleaning me up now, his face
crumpled by that grimace,

a constant hiss between his teeth,
rubbing tissue across my stomach,
his hand a wet clamp on my thigh.

Not even mummy, ok?
And not any of your friends...
Look at me on the bed,

this boy stripped of sleep, under
a man who insisted he loved him
again and again

till there was no choice but to feel it
surge from the centre of him,
springing free like an animal out of a fire.

from Excess Baggage & Claim

Click here for a translation by Masud Khan of this poem,
as well as of Grave and Here.


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