Right is funny sometimes.
This is the side of the car I mis-enter
outside Arrivals
with the fresh sting of a tropical lungful of air.
This is the earthing-wire limb of Nataraja,
the useful arm of God in the Sistine Chapel,
the hemisphere of the brain
out of which paint flows, and humming-birds fly.
This is where the choir of rhymes stand in an ode,
where you would lay down
the first syllable of an Arabic haiku.
Where Hitler leaned,
and Italy -- and italics.
Left is hilarious.
This, and not that, is the hand of Tendulkar that drops
the mushroom autograph.
This is the hand of an acquaintance you glimpse
for a ring, to trace their bliss or misery;
the hand of mine that holds a teacup in restaurants
because my grandmother had suggested
this cuts down contact with public spit;
the lively hand of a protein --
the only hand of a neutrino.
The eardrum of Caesar that had ceased to stir.
The ear Mike Tyson
lets you keep, if it is yours.
The ear Vincent van Gogh
lets you keep, if it is his.
Hither hover hearts; here
align
alliterations.
Once, I dreamed I walked this way on the number line
-- passing all the numerals in a fencing pose
(and I could swear they were getting bigger,
only, I was told, they were getting smaller) --
until I encountered a sinister southpaw
from the occident,
who seemed a bit on the portly side.
