When I am with you, two notes of the sarod

Carry me into a place where I am not.

All the farms have disappeared into air.

Those wooden fence posts I loved as a boy

I can see my father’s face through their wood,

And through his face the sky as threshing ends.

It is such a blessing to hear that we will die.

Ten thousand barks become a hundred thousand;

I knew this friendship with myself couldn’t last forever.

Touch the sarod’s string again, so that the finger

That touched my skin a moment ago

Can become a lightning bolt that closes the door.

Now I know why I keep hinting at the word you—

The sound of you carries me over the border.

We disappear the same way a baby is born.

Some fool with my name has been trying

To peer all afternoon between the thick boards

Of the fence. Tell that boy it isn’t time.