loving
my dead wife
vimal kumar
Till now I never knew
I had been loving my dead wife
kissing her all these years
in those embraces
undressing her in darkness
with all that tickling and giggling
never realizing
she had been dead all along
much like my mother
who had been dead
as she lived
like a corpse
with me my wife slept
on our bed for years
like a corpse
kissing me
her voice often choked
on telephone
I went with her in a marriage
to relatives at Begusarai
and to friends’ houses
once to Shimla
and also once to Bhopal
she dead all the while
changed into a skeleton
though unknown to me
a skeleton wrapped in flesh
eyes turned to stone
hands to branches
legs to lamp posts
yet no one told me
- your wife is dead -
not even my children
- mummy is dead, papa -
even friends said
- hey, is bhabhi not living?
one day even my wife said
pulling me into her embrace
- d’you know I have been
dead all along
living only for my kids
and perhaps for you
I asked her
who after all killed you?
and I have been looking
ever since for the killer
- there are many, said my wife
you being one
and here I am in my own home
an accused in the docks
trying hard to know
- I had always been loving her -
how from a husband
I turned into a killer
when I never knew
I had been loving
a dead wife all along
and what was her compulsion
to love one who’s her killer
and live so long with him
like the wall in her house
crumbling brick by brick
and yet dying day after day
for me her husband
and I too loving my dead wife
trying to light up things
a little
as unwilling I leave for office
translated by dr.mangalmurty.
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