Fujifilm X-T2, People, Poetry, Street Photography
by Patrick Jennings

More Love

Queen of the Bazaar, Chandni Chowk market in Old Delhi, New Delhi, India
Come away with me
I will let you be
Whoever you wish to be

He doesn’t love you
Who would limit you
To who you are now

He does not love you
Who would have you
All to himself

That is not love
But the need of love
As if you are a fetish

Come away with me
And I will let you love
Whomever you want to love

Because I love
That you want
More than just me

It would be enough
To know
You loved yourself best

It would be enough
To know
Who you loved most, next

Queen of the Bazaar
Chandni Chowk
Old Delhi
New Delhi, India

Taken during travels, 2017

It’s like a litter, the two-wheeled cart as it trundles through the swarming market, piled high with tightly bundled anonymous product. And atop it she sits, like a princess, like a queen, as her lone litter bearer weaves through the thronging traffic.

The words to the poem began forming, had begun to coalesce, when this image joined them in my mind.

The words, though, arise from a friendship which, in another place and another time, may have been much more. She was already married, to a man she loved, to a man who needed her, fully and completely, and who needed her to need him just as much.