"Stuff and Nonsense"

My cousin Runs down the lane, A rupee in her hand, To the little shop round the corner. Her mother, next to me, exclaims, "Look how she runs!" Funny, I think with a grin "Like a penguin," for my aunt I say.  The penguin sent with a rupee in hand To buy ten rolled killers for her father  And slow poison for herself From the little shop round the corner. 

She rustled her skirts and asked of him mockingly, trying and failing to muster anger, "Why? So soon? Cut short your vacation, have you?" Winter smiled warmly, touching her with a cool breeze. She melted, and her pain of separation from him fell off her eyes as raindrops. The world thundered, lightning whips fell on them, but their embrace was not one to be broken soon.

 Up there, On the yellow bend of the parapet, With my love will I sit, Legs dangling down against the wall. Red wine in crystal glass And a red meat delicacy to devour Laughing and talking, occasionally Looking up, to smile at the bright moon. Up there,  Watching With my love I will sit.  Every balcony box Laying bare Its domestic thoroughfare. We'll watch from up there - Unwatched. Up there, My glass through my fingers slips! Falling beautifully, measures a height Of eight floors, dying with a muffled tinkle.  "Careful! Lest ye fall" Crack your frame and let the soul slip. "Careful! Lest I lose, To a fall from up here."

"We saw you smiling at a fruit," they said. "It was a musk melon," I smiled again. Just a sniff told me which one to choose: The one with the draining Delhi heat And the beloved, low-rumbling, Water-spitting desert cooler wind; The one with stolen mangoes And long holidays spent all indoors; The one with cycled-down lanes Of yellow golden-shower trees And memories Cascading From that one, closed-eyed whiff Of the just-right Musk melon.