The Syndrome

Loss of position sense on summer evenings,
The finger pads becoming fireflies
That brighten as they rise. Ability
To manage money seriously impaired.
Angry nostalgia over bygone aesthetics,
Girlfriends, bookstores, religious certainties.
Exaggerated fear of losing son
On summer evenings cupping fireflies
Bewildered in close quarters by their own light.
Loss of the sense of time when lost in words
Experienced as intensely as sensations
And more intensely than the times. Twilight
Detected in the irises. Perceived
Decrease in ease of run compared to last time.
Loss of wanderlust but not of lust.
Rational fear of losing parent, worsened
By habit of subtracting parent’s age
From average human life expectancy,
Even while watching parent blow out candles.
Mechanical progression into future
Sleepwalking backwards on a squeaky treadmill.
Loss of the poem on a summer evening
As fingers, lit up, litter laptop keys
With the yellow embers of smashed fireflies.
Newfound lost feeling. Numbness of the tongue.
Persistence, in a dark wood, of the hunt.

Amit Majmudar’s next book is What He Did in Solitary (Knopf). His most recent works are Soar: A Novel and Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary.

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