Letters From Exile – Iv Poem by Hemant Mohapatra

I woke up at 2 a.m. with a start.
It was raining outside — birds
were angry, the streets full
of fire-engines — and I thought
of you after years: where are you now,
and how are you living, so far away,
with your black and white t.v.
by the window that opens up
to tea stalls, your single-bed
in a square apartment, walls
calendared with gods and goddesses
all the way back to nineteen
ninety-six. Tell me, my beautiful
loss, my hyacinth, how are you living
in the valleys of Dehra,
in that house you have made
with a young man you love.