Heat Poem by Eila Mahima Jaipaul

The skin, at first like dust,
began to gain the torment
of airiness to flesh.
All his body's bounds
from duress, relinquished.
A diffuse grace attends this,
as if the long fuss
of waiting were no trial.

There was spark.
A depth, with all the heat
stored from evenings and afternoons,
from ones own and left by others...
which glowed deep
from a restless head
flicking from side to side
slowly along the drift from the frame.

Cisterns of colour and shadow
run through the streaks
of wet quick light thrusting
in slickness
like the inside skin of a plum.

Fixation, basting, heat.
Heat at the rim, at the body,
the sky a net too tight to swim through
Sleek and ripe the mask of will
empties from the lids. Still it continues.
Sound, idea,
emerging reflections shaped,
coveted, returned in motions drowned out
woven over
disappearing beyond darkened corners.

Fret down the sides of legs up the scalp
and every breath is heavier
crawling through the waves
rubbed by fingers
and then not...
Till the fire in the crucible,
the lurid comet in the sky sinks to the lunar
with pre-atomic stunned velocity.
Exploding like tiny light bulbs
going out
coming on
feverish in change
flickering in a radiant field of stars
diminished into filaments of the soul.