Yet I am to die...

And yet I am to die
this time not
one but with two of them
living out the prose
of their life

like
the asymmetrical geometry
of their glances
cultivated casually over the years
sharing
their children

sometimes

ensuring their witness
as they died
before each other
in many arguments...

all of them similar and still separated
by the space of
a gene, a generation
that embodies itself within me
tying me
insensitively to their fights.
why am i so important to them?

In helping him tie his turban
as he conceals
a bald head,
in cajoling her
to lose weight so that
she can fit into the a-line skirt
i gifted her
on her last birthday?

They grumble still
like the noisy wilted pages
of the book which has
left its thumb prints
outside every entrance
to the morgue of memories
where I steadily pile my own flesh
borrowed
from those who hail themselves
as the prominent characters
of the epic
where
my grandparents
have played
protagonists.

I do not recall
the names of those
who
they could have
loved
and
lusted for.
The paramours
in their lives
who float
in my blood
like salt cubes,
collecting themselves
around
the retina of my mind.

And
still
I call them my own.


Those silent lovers
who can be seen
walking through
the silt of silence
they share
on the bed
tucked away
from the glare of
their sweat
and its
scented trail.

It disturbs
the imagined portraits
of gods
clamouring for space
with
multiple hands
and
tilted heads.

They have survived
the youth
of this ancestral home
bathed afresh
with a pail of flowers
which confuses
my sense of smell.

It has located
the crumpled forehead
of my grandfather
his scaly eyebrows
providing
shade to his eyes
blood white
and
the oversized belly button
of
my grandmother
twitched and curled
broken and repaired
by the midwives
who brought to life
my uncles and aunts
the hardened jelly pieces
having coffee colour
similar to
my mother's eyes.
*****
The kite
that ruffles
itself to life
every time
the wind performs
a pole dance
around
the antenna
sits pretty
overlooking
the scalded
terrace floor
mingling
the numerous charcoal drawings
which have
percolated down
through
the cracks in the roof
of the bedroom
where I sit today
counting the number
of hair strands
of my grandparents
gossiping between themselves
the truths dyed.

They are the proof
that my DNA
bears the wear and tear
as they have combed those
men and women out.

The first fight
the grand snub
shared
between the siblings
crawls down
and covers
my slow decay
as I
hurriedly erase
myself
following the rhythm
of my grandparents'

walk
towards their death
hastened
by the wet debris
of the home
whose bricks
and iron rods
now support
my rickety bed.