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.
