My Language, My Future

Outside the city in the garbage dump under the bridge The most senile poet of my language chews bread dunked in tea This man invented poetry even before Afzal* All three hundred and thirty million Gods live in his beard as lice The hairs on his body are all his unwritten poems He furrows words in air with his fingers In this way, he writes to his past every night a letter Which is lost even before an envelope is found Once before dying At least once He hopes that he'll recall the face and name of the woman Who at one time slept with his book of poems Pressed under her pillow