When I would stare at your freckled back and look for a map of cities
where we would go, where we would separate

The hunt is important, you would say, so is the capture
who cares what happens after that?

They say it’s easy to get anything, maintaining is the hard part –
clothes, toys, luxury items,

relationships,

you with your blasé look — I, still hungry, look for a side of a cold bed
that’s no longer slept on

Your mind, partitioned into different countries,
a concubine in each harem, an echo in each chamber

I’m singing the same song, in a different intonation,
the way you did when your tongue first caressed my nape, my mouth,
my name

Crumbs of red velvet are still crumbs, in a vagabond’s palms.

© Anu Mahadev