This is Your Game, by Rajani Radhakrishnan

Untitled (Black in Deep Red), by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia). 1957.

This is Your Game

Describe the painting, you whisper in my ear, without 
using the words for colour. This is your game. The way 

you stood with me in Figueres looking at Dali, daring me 
to describe the persistence of memory without alluding to 

time. I tell you about the way blood thickens when breath is 
stolen from it, the way an empty evening coagulates into a 

lonely night, the way a bruise heals until a faraway memory 
picks at its scab again. Your eyes become the charcoal residue 

of a long forgotten passion. This is your game. The way you 
can bring me a cloud from a burning sky to sing the song of

dormant thunder and then shrug. Tell me why you’re happy, 
you whisper in my ear, tell me without asking about love. 

Rajani Radhakrishnan

"I am from Bangalore, India and post my work on thotpurge.wordpress.com. Some of my poems have recently appeared in online platforms such as The Lake, Quiet Letter, Visual Verse and Parentheses Journal."