City walls and step-wells and piled up peels

Somewhere the lamps shine brighter, but here dim.

I balance on my lashes coloured lanterns

from an entire city lit up, the trembling glint

of glass-fire on water, the night’s darkness burns

with a sandpaper-sadness under my lids,

points out again how fruitless the returns,

the yearnings for things now lowered and closed.

The weight always hangs heavy on restless eyes -

motifs of calligraphies made into mosques

the architectures of reverence, and sighs,

inlays of centuries sketched and now lost,

and sleepless owl moons winging across skies.

Still carry within - the small-writhing husks,

the peels of years which vanished at the bend,

the slithery skins and scales of time piled up

into mountains of sharpness, stone-stiffened,

the city walls and step-wells untidily tucked

behind arches still standing though weakened.