My Wretched Sphere

Maha Bindu 1988

by S. H. Raza

It almost always starts 

With one of Raza's large dots.

The magnified black sphere of my moist eye.

Still 

but surely searching. 

At the outset, it latches onto things closest.

The clutter on the bed

The somber painting hanging overhead

Perhaps that novel on the shelf

Replete with its winding nightmares

Or that Greek composer playing on loop

Piano, oboe, strings

Piano oboe strings

pianooboestrings

A melodic lump lodged in my throat.

It could also just be those things he said

Or didn't say

Or almost just did

Last night

Or many nights ago

By the window, right here

Or much further away.

Or that new note

in voices everywhere

Doled out in spurts

A nauseating amalgam of panic and pity.

I take a stroll each day along the elliptical orbits of my life

Looking for the sources of the cracks along the way

But this steady gliding and less than graceful sliding

Almost always slips me back into

That wretched black sphere

of my very own eye.