Hometown in Bangladesh
cardamom-scented deep summer, a slack coyote through the plains, hungers/I hear it hunting/I hear me haunting/open shuttering thatched huts/coin-sized raindrops/the evenings, lavender and moody/gardenias wilting, their bodies hot/I lick chili and salt clean from a plate/my grandmother pours us two cold thin glasses of thick mango juice/she was born there/the rising heat stretching up to hug her, I think of comfort/it creeps and sticks and shimmers onto my skin/she laughs, rich and full of meaning/the rickety red and gold rickshaw to her sister’s home/the rain now in phantom glass sheets/I was born there, too/I run in, a basket of guavas balanced on my elbows/my grandmother’s spotted wrists, each adorned with a gold bangle/the soft underbelly of her arms, not seeing enough sun/she doesn’t like America/she cries here/home smells like jackfruit/lime/ honey/in the morning the land is dry and barren again/burnt hard from the heat/the feet of the workers calloused and rough/she sings/the earth thirsts for the monsoon/like there is something dark brewing in the roots
Admitting the Dream
I was the girl with dirt on her feet,
running on ancient fertile lands.
Uncontained, like the mouth of
the flower parting and closing,
wrinkling with the hour. I leave
my womanhood somewhere, shell off
the wizened skin, remove the coarse
brine from my hair. Eat with my hands.
Rinse the salt from the legs. The villagers
watch me come home with dead mean
only. The rest of the girls in the village
become wives while they are still young
and I grow old and more terrifying and
more beautiful. I wipe the blood clean.
I knife my body like a sharp tooth, vacating
all desire, thinking of biting into fruit.
I veer my want into the want, dulling my highs
and sleeping on the wet banks of the river.
I was the girl with dirt on her feet, and they
talk about me. I tore my way into the reach.
Survival
If you think about it, there are
. only two ways the body knows
. how to breathe.
. The first at the pulchritude of waking,
fidgeting with tender
for mercy at the feet
and then, with the mouth
. settling for a bottom piece.
. I ripped at my brown skin
until I learned how quickly
. my skin knew to grow back—
holding the weight of generational
. carnage. I breathe.
Unyielding like flame. Reeling in
to take in the sun. Wishing away
white. Coaxing the planets
into alignment during the Disease.
. I read somewhere that our cosmos intertwines
like a baby in its mother, bleeding
like one being. That would explain
. our mutual tendencies to dream.
It would explain why, then,
we are in
and in everything, we are.
Generational Curses
Hand me
the cord to slit,
that ancient
binding thing
Give me your gentle.
Promise to throw
away the keys.
Throw away
the haunted
and scream for something
new instead. Hunt for new bulbs
but keep the roots intact.
Wear the sari
in every color but red.
Gasp into the void
this time with a fearless
thundering heart.
Gully the tides into new lands
into unborn third spaces.
Halt the machine.
Gather the saffron and rose.
Take what you want
from it
this time.
Leave
the rest behind:
you are allowed.
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