How To Decipher

A Poem by Satish Verma

Like a virgin birth, a poem floats

Like a virgin birth,
a poem floats
without any pain.

Superimposes, as if
on a face, like Mona Lisa,
with her mysterious smile,
longing a release from
the cycle of rebirth.

Are you going to reperform
for me, your silent
surrender, bewildering
a lost pilgrim?

Will you become a
sitter like a moon-faced, veiled
by crying clouds? I had been
trying to touch your lips, eyes.

This vicious assault
was for me. Stony eyes, and
the striking hood―
impel kleptomania.