she slips her tongue under the gold hem,

where the skin still smells of citrus and gunmetal,

not love, exactly, but ceremony.

there is always a treaty before there is a kiss.

he feeds her pomegranate seeds one by one,

each pip a small red empire:

chewed, swallowed, archived.

velvet on her wrist; soot on her mouth.

a nation hums between her legs,

too tired to rebel, too wet to run.

the railways stretch across her ribs —

iron hot, pulsing like the memory of fever.

his cufflinks rattle.

his shadow colonises the inside of her cheek

on the balcony:

a telegram / a clove cigarette / a silk sari in rain.

he asks what the colour means.

she says nothing.

names are for borders, not for tongues.

she undoes him like a prayer —

gently, with inherited grief

they eat mango over the sink.

the juice drips between her thighs.

he laughs.

she thinks of famine,

of ration cards,

of sugar packed in the shape of a Union.

he licks her fingers.

she lets him

she dreams of him in crisp linen,

his mouth full of borrowed history.

his teeth know her like a map.

she wakes with spice in her throat

and salt in her hair.

the flag folds neatly

at the end of the bed.