Jayant Kashyap, Poetry 2021 Featured Writer

Bonfires

    “They make a desolation and call it peace.”

                – Agha Shahid Ali

When we were nothing we loved

them so much our bodies broke, nothing

remained to love back even for once;

today we are four letters, uncanny and

still in love; we are shadows, quiet

and together, and when the sun’s lucky

we’re hardly visible; the nights observe

us burning, our lips trembling, silent

and yet nothing crackles. When we

stand to reason, they burn half a country

down, merely, for the sake of names;

when the bonfire spans storeys, they

gather in the streets and chant again. We

are still nothing, and we flicker like

dying flames; when they stand we’re not

heard, our words untrustworthy, our

bodies only soil and salt. We’re still

nothing, but always more than a lie,

always no less than truth.