At a certain point I lost track of you.


You needed me. You needed to perfect me:


In your absence you polished me into the Enemy.


Your history gets in the way of my memory.


I am everything you lost. You can't forgive me.


I am everything you lost. Your perfect enemy.


Your memory gets in the way of my memory:




I am being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell:

Exquisite ghost, it is night.



The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves:


It is still night. The paddle is a lotus:


I am rowed—as it withers—toward the breeze which is soft as
if it had pity on me.


Agha Shahid Ali through Amitav Ghosh in The New Yorker