On Whose Forehead I’ll Smear Colour

Nilim Kumar
Translated from original Asomiya by
Dibyajyoti Sarma

Who won’t let me remember last night, who
Will pierce me with saddening good nights and
Good mornings
Who with the colour of her tears will
Ask me to draw small household dreams, who’ll come
To sit along with me on the dining table, to comb the
Instability of my hair, to put a cover on my pillow,
To spread cold sheets on the bed, and to
wipe away the darkness of my inebriation,
who’ll offer me the blessing of her touch and sight,
who in some night will tangle me like creepers
on my breast will lay entwined the sleep of whose hair
who’ll hide my crimson shirts, burn my favourite
letters, arrange my old poems which because she
didn’t understood are not dangerous!
Who gradually will turn a stranger to me,
Go away, faraway from my heart!
To make my sadness more painful is she
Coming on whose forehead I’ll smear colour.