everyone grows thorns
to protect themselves.

Under your feet
the stones
are no longer stones
but foothills

land is
unintended cricket fields
then dust
then leopard pugmarks.

This is the desert
signing you in

slowly
through kikar's checkpost.

They call it the devil tree
they call it the mad one
Vilaayti Kikar

it asks you for water.

The British brought it from Mexico
to Delhi in the 1920s,
making a mistake the size of kings.

It choked all trees around it,
it stole their water.

I walk cautiously in its dust
mindful of geckos,

find a tree
the size of my mistakes
leave your memory
on a low branch.

A slow wind
lifts the dust on its arms.

As I return
groundwater recedes

further
and then further.

The rasp of the jhingurs scraping
their forewings behind the hibiscus.
The floating arguments of the mynas

returning to their nests. The prowling
echoes of the skelter bats. The headlit
horns whetted by a red signal outside.

The alert clicks of a camera in the small
hands of a curly-haired novice. His chalein
to a friend when they’re done. The shuffle

of their feet on old gravel. The footsteps
of the short guard minding the stanchions,
keeping a stray couple from the night.

A parrot’s drop, light as a kerchief, in the hauz,
the sandstone of the tomb suddenly rippled.
The quiet press of a band of pigeons on the

dome drawn by an expert Abyssinian hand.
The guards discussing their change of duties.
The anomalous graze of a landing on a nearby

air-strip. Under the rococo sky, the disturbed
sleep of the Wazir-ul-Mamlak-e-Hindustan.
On my shoulder, the thin crush of your whisper.