Prithu Sanyal

In the Forbidden City

You —
because you live in a forbidden city —

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I
took my first lesson in being made whole
from your hand.

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I went
to open new doors and windows
of a fugitive life,
to open up life itself.

You —
because you live in a forbidden city —
I took an oath
in your name.

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I swore
by those seven heavens
and by the hypocrite god
of this whole earthly sphere.

Yet
if you, and the touch of your body,
should swallow me
in sin carried from birth to birth,

a sin
written into me at birth itself,
become
a lifelong curse.

Yet
for the sake of this flowing life,
to purify this life,
I had gone to you.

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Only
between us there was
the free coming and going of words.
And
perhaps there was some forbidden traffic too.

The hypocrite god
of the heavens —
was he watching,
I do not know.

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I only
came to know
that we
had no god.

And
I —

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even today
am not made whole.

Not purified either.

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I only
stand
at the door of your forbidden city,
rooted.
Still.

The door
does not open.
The window
does not open.

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Never fulfilled
is my lifelong longing
to be purified.