Implacable

The moon titled her head
and went inarticulate
in black and white.

Seeding the earth with
stupor, undoing my―
poem in water.

An asteroid crashed in
my blue lake. Sit beside me,
I would say to a songbird.

The cardinal sin was
to abandon the throne
and climb down at night.

What was the designer's
love, I will ask, when I
was preparing myself for a self-denial.

Satish Verma