by Ranjani Murali
You were conceived on a beach with flare lamps, fan fare, rubber horns, bus-halt screech, the hero with a penchant for number-plate watching, salt-rock, stiff nods from directors wiping necks with blue-checked handkerchiefs, disco-ball shard light dancing off haywards 5000s, sambrani plumes from nearby balconies, the clamor of sundal boys’ cycle bells and aluminum cans, and even a hunched man taking notes on suitable body angles. Start roll camera was not a cue for extending bare knee, it was a precise
rupturing of polished prism by an eye of light flecked with raw silica—crystals wrenched from sheerness, coating the love-scene with an opacity that your fetal, forming eyes could have never known; you, a springing of cinematic effusions and silicate
songs in the rain, perhaps now bridge-layer, cement-mixer, glass carver, perhaps master of straight edges or crenelle, or maybe just a construction worker passing by water, seeing through sand, as my skin did that day: an observation of pure refraction, gaze in glass.
This is the second prize winner of Cha's "Encountering" Poetry Contest. Read a description of the poem by Ranjani Murali here. |