Nakur

Nakur!

I knew you by name.

You didn’t even populate

my background traffic in allusions.

I wasn’t aware I was aware of you

till that afternoon, when you were half a mile away.

I didn’t know if you were a sweet or a shop

or a name

or a word in Bangla.

But when I turned left to the lane and you were there

I greeted you over-familiarly.

Past the entrance through which only

staff enter I saw a sanctum,

a temple-space, high on whose walls

hung no secular photograph

but mortal or mythic divinities.

But in the front where a group milled

was pure box-office—an ancient grille

through whose one square gap an arm

retrieved notes and boxes changed hands.

Is it your sandesh that

has pullulations, like a face

that’s broken out in fever, or did I

imagine that? Others bought;

I, a flunkey on the pavement, stood

on the margin taking photos on my phone

of you, the grille, the tubelit shade,

and the crowd. I did not eat

or taste you, but entirely

consumed you and your customers.