Love, sent to a single loaded corridor

Hanging upside down, like a giant lizard 

I cling to you with unblinking calm, 

draw waves along your length.

I dream of ways to inhabit you again,

my Marsyas, as your voussoirs shelter me 

under nine arches.

Out from under the First, I regain balance

on moss-retaining tiles, checkered red,

laid at 1:5, turn away from its faint stench.

Rants of a cutter-armed friend 

ricochet off mount boards;  she completes 

my model, saving my ass under the Second. 

A ninja jumps out from under the Third

negotiating a bush, watered from above.

A puddle forms in broken asphalt.

I witness a red-rose proposal 

under the Fourth, where level differences 

match heights, and hearts.

Perpendicular runs under the Fifth, midway

on steps that bite into the plinth,

stage ephemeral greetings, impromptu baithaks.

T-scales dumped under the Sixth –

the ancient bearer of unreadable results 

that wears a baroque egg tiara and watches on.

Vapour swirls from tea, served in paper cups 

held by Dumbledore Longbeards,

spilling out of seminars, racing to reach the Seventh.

I wade through a copy of the new Shilpasagar, 

on a table, as I peep into the Principal's cabin 

under the Eighth. Sore 

from an overdose of architecture,

I turn to the fine arts, a gallop away, 

to contemplate an escape under the Ninth.

I don't act on it.

Oscillating between volume bursts

You are Newton's cradle,

I come to you, to go nowhere.

Published in the February 2021 issue of the Indo French (Jaipur-Paris) RIC journal https://ricjournal.com/2021/02/22/love-sent-to-a-single-loaded-corridor-pooja-ugrani/