Sweet and Fragrant Nirvana, Poetry by Nalini Priyadarshni

You call me jaggery lips

though you have never sucked on

golden blob of sweetness

and have no idea about its taste

only a vague memory of

something you had sampled in Mexico

made of sugarcane juice

Sweet and fragrant!

Maybe you have forgotten gulkand

in your post dinner paan with silver foil

after a long day of sightseeing

in the heat and dust of Benaras

that started at Ghats and culminated

at the silk shop where sitting midst

thousands of pieces of fine silk

you picked golden Ganesha on black

my favorite god whose figurines I collect

A coincidence you would say

 of course, like countless others.

Sipping ice cold water under the droning fan

browsing through vibrant silk pieces

each more beautiful than the previous

with no intention to buy any, after the

oppressive heat of the day you had spent wandering

the streets of the ancient city with your juvenile guide

you picked my favorite god to take back home

India you did not pack in your backpack

 lodged itself beneath your nails

flowered as a trident on your palm

to unfold in the folds of your skin

in the twilight of ‘beaver state’

Thronging with love, gurgling chaos

it nestles in the crevices of your soles

You now return to me in myriad pieces

I stow away at the back of my lingerie drawer

run my finger along their edges listening to Beatles

try to put them together in sultry afternoons

let lusty mangoes seduce me into thinking

we can find a way to turn the clock around

and find nirvana in slurping their nectar

Author info- Nalini Priyadarshni is a poet, writer, editor and amateur photographer. Her work has appeared at various international magazines and lit journals including Up the Staircase Weekly, eFiction India, Mad Swirl, Crescent Magazine, The Riveter Review, Writes & Lovers Café, The Gambler, Camel Saloon, Earl of Plaid, CUIB-NEST-NIDO, and The Open Road Review, Phoenix Photo and Fiction, Undertow Tanka besides numerous anthologies including Resonance, I Am Woman, Awakening of She, Art of Being Human etc. She lives in Ludhiana, India with her husband and two feisty kids. Her first solo poetry collection Doppelgänger In My House is expected in 2016.