Payal

Poem by Rocco Valentini

Artwork Sourced From Pinterest. Artist: Kai Carpenter.

Payal

by Antonio Rocco S. (Rocco Valentini)

प्यार एक ताले और चाबी के रिश्ते की तरह है।
Love is a lock-and-key relationship.

चिंक चिंक चिंक
Moonlight 
Slices through the window
Of our oceanfront bedroom.
She enters
And I hear the clinking
With each heartbeat.
Her bare foot rests on my lap
And the chain around her ankle
Reminds me I do not own her;
She owns me.

चिंक चिंक चिंक
Her payal is an alambana;
Its charms all have silver tongues 
And speak before she does,
Persuading me
To hand them
The key to my cage;
To see if a Tyger
Can change its stripes 
Or
If it will be bound by them. 

चिंक चिंक चिंक
I am a prisoner of desire
And she is the warden
Who holds the key to my heart.
She rides me like Durga rides her Tyger,
Taming the wild within my spirit
And inspiring a fearful symmetry
In the eye of my passion.
The act of being mounted
Transforms my lust for her
Into something divine.

प्यार एक विरोधाभास है जहां गुलाम भी स्वामी होता है।
Love is a paradox where the slave is also the sovereign.