Nightjar’s call

I picked the lock and let it drown in the river.
No. I let the key get carried away in the wave half-blind.

Rather I lost both the lock and the key to my bags of paper
As he stumbled to keep filling our sea with his saliva.

I kept floating with my eyes on the blood orange sun
He kept swimming in the froth water, swimming for salt.

There is a world far away, not of the sand, not of the poem.
Neither yours nor mine. There is a median without a tongue.

I remember the violent sounds of our neighborhood nightjar
Night after night after night. I know now what he cried for.

V Paliwal