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Living Space / One Breath
Living Space / One Breath - Imtiaz Dharker
I live much of the time in Bombay/Mumbai, which is a city that looks like its held together with sticks and sellotape and string. It's an image of fragility and that's found its way into these poems.
Living Space / One Breath
There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.
Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space
and even dared to place
these eggs in a wire basket,
fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light
into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.
One Breath
All it would take
is one slammed door
to make the whole thing
fall. One bottle hurled
against a wall,
to start the hammering
on the heart
and crack
the body?s shell.
One sneeze, one cough,
one doubt.
All it would take
is one breath,
no more.
from Postcards from God (Bloodaxe, 1997), © Imtiaz Dharker 1997, used by permission of the author and the publisher.