Yet it isn’t Rakhi’s hand,
but those strange eyes. Her mocking
village-modern face,
her way of speaking.
Even now it comes back to me, deeply, in private.
How deeply it comes back today,
all my careless, wandering laughter,
and her irritation at it.
Shaking off all irritation, her
speech, full of that bewitching regional lilt,
“Came and went in a flash.”
Yet it isn’t Rakhi’s hand,
but those strange eyes. Her mocking,
and the lips of a girl who’d only just learned to mock.
The trembling of those lips.
Even now it comes back to me, deeply, in private.
How deeply it comes back —
why was her lip never placed against my lip!
Why was her eye never placed against my eye.
Or hand against hand.
Or why did we never spend
night after night together.
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