‘Your touch and the sun are indistinguishable’: Four poems from Akhil Katyal’s new book of poetry

I Come Back to My Flat

In the living room
you’re sitting on the landlord’s sofa
tying your shoelaces.

In the study, I am
pulling you behind the shelves
for one more kiss.

In the kitchen, you’re putting
the three extra spoons of sugar
in your morning tea.

At the washbasin,
naked, you’re cleaning up
the mess we’ve made.

In the bedroom, you’re
sitting up on my side of the bed,
your back reticent.

In each place
you’re always there.

In each place,
you’re readying
to leave.

Night Sounds at Safdarjung Tomb

…now I am the mourner for drifting leaves.
– Intizar Hussain

The poetry of earth is ceasing never.
– John Keats

The rasp of the jhingurs scraping
their forewings behind the hibiscus.
The floating arguments of the mynas

returning to their nests. The prowling
echoes of the skelter bats. The headlit
horns whetted by a red signal outside.

The alert clicks of a camera in the small
hands of a curly-haired novice. His “Chalein?”
to a friend when they’re done. The shuffle

of their feet on old gravel. The footsteps
of the short guard minding the stanchions,
keeping a stray couple from the night.

A parrot’s drop, light as a kerchief, in the hauz,
the sandstone of the tomb suddenly rippled.
The quiet press of a band of pigeons on the

dome drawn by an expert Abyssinian hand.
The guards discussing their change of duties.
The anomalous graze of a landing on a nearby

airstrip. Under the rococo sky, the disturbed
sleep of the Wazir ul-Mamlak-i-Hindustan.
On my shoulder, the thin...

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