Love Poem by Aloke Mukherjee

Love came one day at my door just before night fall,
darkness biding its time, Sweetheart, you were not
there, but whiff of you were floating in the air, your
tresses touching me with infinite care, light was still there
One man waited for beauty behind the curtain, he awaited
ages- -

So love came to my door in hushed footsteps, sometimes
like snakes. It would bite, it poured poison which never left
your blood. Traces of it remains till you die or to the next, who
Knows.

Who knows I kept the love with a shriveled rose-bud in my
closet, I kept it in my left ventricle, I kept it in my synapses like
a perpetual dream or reality, what else can perpetuate

I knew you were coming, I heard you in the rustle of the leaves as
wind blew through the trees and undergrowth, in the putter-patter of
rain on the dirt road behind my cottage, You were coming all along.
but you never came. My butterflies are afraid of death and dead.
The two hands of prayer in wreath of time, praying for pleasure,
of sex and just living in puzzling time but the sweet odor of love
persists, an impalpable angel hovering between the life and aftermath.

The beautiful lips quivering with expectation, a space between, love
and unlove, in the middle of desire, hopes dancing a waltz, are you ready?

Love came one day at my door just before night fall,
darkness biding its time, Sweetheart, you were not
there, but whiff of you were floating in the air, your
tresses touching me with infinite care, light was still there
One man waited for beauty behind the curtain, he awaited
ages- -

So love came to my door in hushed footsteps, sometimes
like snakes. It would bite, it poured poison which never left
your blood. Traces of it remains till you die or to the next, who
Knows.

Who knows I kept the love with a shriveled rose-bud in my
closet, I kept it in my left ventricle, I kept it in my synapses like
a perpetual dream or reality, what else can perpetuate

I knew you were coming, I heard you in the rustle of the leaves as
wind blew through the trees and undergrowth, in the putter-patter of
rain on the dirt road behind my cottage, You were coming all along.
but you never came. My butterflies are afraid of death and dead.

The two hands of prayer in wreath of time, praying for pleasure,
of sex and just living in puzzling time but the sweet odor of love
persists, an impalpable angel hovering between the life and aftermath.

The beautiful lips quivering with expectation, a space between, love
and unlove, in the middle of desire, hopes dancing a waltz, are you ready?