your gaze has gone straight through me
like a vampire’s flashing fangs
through a blue throbbing vein
embossed on a bare slanted neck
slick with sweat
& I am already waiting feverishly
in love’s unventilated vestibule
for the moment of transformation
the full moon night of losing myself in you
that will rend me apart terrorising me
with its blend of weakness and strength
ecstasy & escalation of pain
the senses grow suddenly sharper
now I can hear your heart
tolling sonorously like a giant bell
asking me to return to you
again & again wherever I am
alive or as a shred of memory
I can smell all the places lucky enough
to hold you in your articulate sweat
the high sea on which the scent
of caprice and bitter coffee
a jasmine’s footsteps wandering through your hair
the fresh fragrance of ink and paper
are transported to the exotic land
of my unquenchable desire
for everything that is you & only you
I can taste cumin & cinnamon
ground to perfection & pods
of cardamom bursting between your teeth
& in the saltiness of your mouth
the foreknowledge of a place
that I can never understand except as home
also I know I will feel the insuperable ache
of nights without your fingers long and interminable
dipped in the torrent of my body
the garlic flowers of your absence
—About the Poet—
Sambhu Ramachandran is a bilingual poet, translator, short story writer, and academic from Kerala, India. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S. College, Pandalam. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Bombay Literary Magazine (TBLM), Wild Court, Madras Courier, The Alipore Post, Muse India, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Setu, The Chakkar, Soul Poetry, The Ultramarine Review, and Sextet, among others.
—AI Image Description—
A stylized garlic blossom rises like a botanical icon, its bulb rendered in creamy whites and purplish reds that swirl into curved, sensual segments. From this plump, glowing base, two deep-green leaves flare upward, framing a tall stem topped with a dense, spherical cluster of small violet-magenta flowers. The piece appears as a soft-toned triptych, each panel darkening progressively from left to right, giving the central image a luminous, almost devotional presence.
Created and described with ChatGPT for “The Transformation.”