Body Language

Prayer

In prayer,
language of a body
puts its mind to sleep.
The most secular of all gesticulations.
Eyes shut meditatively
cloak the body with a personal silence.
Inert to priests.
Immune to all sermons.

Wink

Wink is backchannel diplomacy
Of consenting conspirators
Smuggling away
All meanings of spoken words
Leaving their empty shells
Rattling amid overzealous people.

Kiss

You don’t kiss any quivering lips,
departing cheeks,
heavy palms, or
sweat-laced foreheads.
You can’t kiss anybody or anything.
You only kiss
your own imaginations
planted on other bodies.
And reclaim them with a watermark
in vain, each time.

Scratching Your Head

Scratching your head
is cheating your body.
You attend to an itch
that did not exist.
Summon respect
to unwanted occasions.
And compose a parody
for a head that thinks for itself.

Caution!

It’s the season of festivals.
I wake up to hear
fireworks and gunshots
sound the same.
You could be injured by
the stray happiness of others.
Stay indoors.
Repair the ‘I’s and ‘you’s of your language
(Use your eyes!)
before venturing out.