There was noth­ing sim­ple about it
even then –

an eleven-year-old’s hunger
for the wet perfection

of the Alham­bra, the musky torsos
of foot­ball stars, ancient Egypt and Jacques Cousteau’s

lurch­ing empires of the sea, bazaars
in Mughal India, the sacred plunge

into a Cadbury’s Five Star bar, Kanchen­jan­ga, kiss­es bluer
than the Adri­at­ic, hon­eystain of sunlight

on tem­ple wall, a moon-lath­ered Parthenon, draught
of north­ern air in Scot­tish cas­tles. The child god craving

to pop a universe
into one’s mouth. 

It’s back again,
the lust
that is the deepest
I have known,

cel­e­brat­ed by paper­back romances
in sta­tion book­stalls, by poets in the dungeons
of Tole­do, by bards croon­ing foreverness
and gut-thump on FM radio
in Bom­bay traf­fic jams -

an undo­ing,
an unmaking,
raw
raw -

a mon­soon­al ferocity
of need. 
 

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