Gulmohar Red — Poems by Parul Tayenjam

A baker whispered into my ears
—this crunchy caramel confection

that can absolve sin.
The troika of heaven’s feast—

sugar, butter, and salt-bathed nuts.
The French called it Nougatine.

How elegantly it arrives in my ears
with their uvular trill.

When my brother brought home
a slab of this

classy continental confection,
it landed on my hand with only a

familiar dull thud
of a commoner’s commons.

Flash forward to the sticky caulk
in between the hollows

of my teeth.
I now call it Chikki,

the inelegant kind that
falls off the tongue

like the taunt
of an annoying child.

I say to you one late spring—my favourite colour is
gulmohar red.
You only say gulmohars are from Madagascar,

and their fern-like leaves are feathery
and light as a parakeet’s green
—the kind of spitting facts only you do so well.

I don't like ferns;
they grow near the drains where I come from.
In the commonness of their dirty fronds

fiddling the gaps of open drains,
I find no comparison
to the springing green of gulmohar leaves.

You tell me ferns don't flower,
yet they are older than trees.
And I don't tell you

that I don't like ferns.
And so, the quiet dismantling we do so well,
flowers red yet again

in the spring rain
like the gulmohar I love,
and we walk away in silence, unholding hands.

The pop of
one
cold grape,

the first one,
that summer,

you remember
and carry

its taste
on
your tongue

and
compare it

to every grape
that
came after.

Under the slanting luminescence
of rainforest’s canopy
heat,
the cicadas have come
overground to sing.
Broods spill out
of spring’s dampened earth,
moulting into singing bards,
and die beautiful deaths
in the aftermath
of their magnum opus
plaguing sleep all around.
Only the choruses of tuning vibrations
in between the spokes
of evergreen leaves
linger
when they leave.
There is nothing artificial
about their love-lorn song.
How brief and timely
they awake
to the slowly awakening quake
of this earth’s
icy winter sleep.

5. Spring Cleaning

Momentarily
in the company of warm
March morning air,
I forget
the stack of dishes soaked in the sink.

The trouble with spring is,
it makes me forget the troubles
with trouble.
Here, I rinse my face
in the warmth of
sadness-robbing
daylight.

Momentarily
in the heat
of bitter coffee before
the eyes
of this morning heat,

I relish the mouthfeel
of a caffeine-soaked tongue.
I’ll roll the thermal burnt bits
of my peeling skin
inside my mouth
and press hard
where it hurts.

Momentarily
my own laughter
rings in my eardrum; I am surprised
by the sound
I can make.

I’ll sense the cuts belatedly;
the eventual tearing of flesh
by kite strings I blissfully play with.
And stack more dishes in the sink
and wait
for another spring day
to wash me clean again.