Fly Away

the pavements have swelled
with the thicket of boys. and the
rustic clamour of their lives drift into
my room coloured in January sunshine.
i watch them in vibrant apparels
huddled across the street: their faces
lifted to the sunlit sky, and
a legion of fluttering kites
swim in and out of their squinting eyes.

there's Mustaq at the promenade –
an oversized flimsy maroon sunglass
rests on his firm cheek bones,
with his sister behind him. a reeling
spool of glittering manza in her hands
while he stands upright like a mast
in sea-songs, his fingers wound around
the string, at the far end of which soaring
loosely in the blue was his kite. he tugs at
the chord as the kite dips against the wind,
passing close to another kite flying in
from the smoky northern sky. the spool
whirls faster in the girl’s grip and Mustaq’s
arms row in sync, as the strings
invisibly lock in the firmament.

as his kite starts to float away owned by
the wind, Mustaq stands sucking the blood
on his finger with a smirk in his eyes. a
boisterous cheer from the adjacent colony
rides the wind to them. and even before his
lilting kite vanished from the sky –
fading like a speck of fly ash in the face of light –
in a fall to earth or torn by a stray tree wing;
i watch him on his knees on the dust mattered pavement,
stringing a new kite, for a new flight.

it’s better that way, i assume. to not know if love
returned home or got wasted midway; and
instead set out for a new meaning. i recount
myself on the pavement beside Mustaq, flying
away with my aspirations till she joined me
under the sun, and i let the manza loose on my
fingers, surrendering to the romance that sliced
my skin and spilled my blood.

only that i never flew a second kite again.
not wanting to be wounded;
not wishing to wound her.

© sobhan