of worship

so cold, religiously so, coughing phosphorus flares through my nose,
heaving against twin incense smokelines uncurling into themselves,
my lungs as offerings. have kept promises at altars, conditioned
& underwritten in bone-deep desires for a covenant. i sleep
the sleep of believers & long for a will as free as a belief.

temples fire a fever in me. my father keeps asking his friend
if there's any shakti gained between these walls & uncle shrugs,
couldn't say. we walk squelch-shod over rotting garlands.
it's guru purnima, here lived & died the guru of his guru's guru,
passing away three years ago in the fall, of a fall.