the ferryman in a t-shirt
he reads like a man trying to sit still
in a world that keeps changing the tag in his shirt.
“siddhartha” open on his lap…
hesse’s calm river of sentences…
and he’s got that look:
half monk, half streetlight,
a phd in philosophy
trying not to turn his living room
into a seminar
…and failing, beautifully.
hesse keeps flowing,
but his body hits a snag…
so his hand goes up…
scratching the back of his head
like there’s an invisible mosquito
with a grudge.
then the eyebrow…
pinched and rolled between his finger pads
like he’s testing a bead
for truth.
then the nose…
a quick rabbit squiggle,
a ridiculous little twitch
that makes me want to laugh
and also to kiss him
because it’s honest,
because it’s unguarded,
because it’s the kind of weird you don’t fake.
he bends his elbow
to reach the back
like some complicated yoga
invented by a nervous saint…
and there it is again,
the fabric problem,
the world of seams and edges
that some people walk through like air
and he walks through like nettles.
next, he lifts his t-shirt sleeve
and explores his own shoulder
like he’s checking on an old bruise
he doesn’t remember earning.
he scratches behind his left ear,
then worries at the right…
draws a line on his upper lip,
the edge of his sideburn…
like he’s trying to erase
a thought he can’t quite catch.
all of it happening
while the sentence keeps moving forward,
while siddhartha keeps walking…
away from comfort,
toward the river,
toward whatever silence
counts as a home.
and the thing is…
he never loses me.
he keeps his place
in the book
and in me.
he pauses to check my face
like i’m a paragraph
he cares about understanding.
“you with me?” he asks,
and it doesn’t feel like a quiz,
it feels like a hand offered
over a bad patch of ground.
he explains the meta picture…
not in that oily way
people explain things to win,
but in the careful way
you explain a sky
to someone you want beside you.
he’ll say something like
“listen… this is about thirst,”
or “this is about renunciation,”
or “this is about the trap
of making enlightenment
another kind of possession,”
and i can hear
the whole monastery of his mind
opening its doors
so i can walk through.
then he loans the characters voices,
different mouths, different lives…
a soft, stubborn clarity for siddhartha,
a sharper hunger for govinda,
a worldly laugh for the ferryman…
like he’s turning the text
into a little theater
just for the two of us.
and every so often
his eyes leave the page
and land on mine…
not to catch me slipping
but to catch me gently
before i drift.
he watches for drowsiness
like it’s something precious
he doesn’t want stolen.
he pets my hand
like it’s a small animal
that finally trusts him.
and i’m sitting there,
listening to hesse
and the soft static of his body
trying to negotiate with itself…
textures, fabrics, seams…
all those tiny betrayals of comfort
he never asked for.
people think love is grand gestures.
people are idiots.
love is this:
a man with a river in his book,
a doctorate full of holy arguments,
battling a sleeve seam,
a tag, a phantom itch…
and still giving me
every clear word
like it matters.
love is him fidgeting
and staying.
love is him reading
like he’s building a bridge
sentence by sentence
right to my sleepy eyes,
right to my understanding,
right to the quiet place in me
that says…
yes.
that.
keep going.
© Sreedhari Desai