Dev, he calls me

 

Dev, he calls me

The door shuts like a glottis
that barely swallows his entrance. Will he smoke
or brood? Either way, he leaves ash
on everything, always an explosion.

Now he drapes on a sari, peacock proud.
It might even rain, just to please him.
"Dev," he calls me, puts all his English
into it, as if reading for a play.

Our walls make good microphones.
I hear him from the balcony,
where a plant creeps up to me: a lazy Rapunzel,
only slightly balding, paunched, and male.

"Dev," he calls me, as a wife
would. On the bed lies
my guitar: a broken larynx.