Species Vulnerabilis

We walk around wearing
our vulnerabilities,
blinking in shyness
with eyes averted
carefully, from insecurities
of others, too much like ours.

Harelips, club feet, lazy eyes,
birthmarks, pockmarks, dumbo ears,
thick skin, thin skin, wrinkled skin,
voices, murmurs, memories,
words unsaid, and words outsaid –
a collection of wounds

we wrap around us and
carry, paradoxically,
like a protective shield,
a comforter, a motherly
armour, lulling us to our
baby sleep, hoping that those

we meet along the way won’t
shake us awake too rudely.

Choking on a Cherry

While you were choking on a cherry,
In the middle of a dappled country road,
I was twelve, and terrified
And stood at a distance, like
A block of stone, watching
The woman we were visiting
Pound your bent back with urgency.

(Grandmother told me how one summer
You almost choked on a teaspoonful
Of honey trickling slowly down your
Baby throat, and all she could do was
Watch)

When the cherry was propelled out
And you breathed back into life,
I too was catapulted from the
Dark nether regions of possible
Childhood tragedies into a fairly
Standard untraumatized adolescence,
Ushered in by a breath of relief –

Relief which, in retrospect, was only
Stalling for time, and blew up into
Smithereens, dispersed forever
When, twenty years later, I received
The news of your death, final
And irreversible, holding no
Hidden last-minute reprieves.

Winter Nocturno

3:30 a.m. and no moon
In sight. The windows in the alley
Gape unresponsive, the stiletto-roofs
Cut into the night-gray sky.


At 3:30 a.m. the back yard
Is massive. Under the expanse
Of white, it is a stage poised for
The next act, virgin-crisp under the lights.


Is this it? This patch of moonless
Sky, this plot of frozen ground,
These paper clouds, these dreaming
People whose names I don't know --


Is this it? Where my show will
Play out? Is it, at this random hour,
Already playing out? Is it, from out
There, looking back at me,


Wondering the same things? Well,
We are at least awake here together:
It must be a good sign; it must mean
I should now learn my lines.

The Girl with the Short Hair

(Za Gordanu)


She is back,
The girl with the short hair.
She doesn’t say where she has been
Or how long she is staying,
She only waves and beckons
From across the street,
Points at her open sandals
And summer tan,
Laughs with her
Forest-honey eyes.

Her hand plays with
The bristle of her hair
Uncovered by hat,
Her long bare arms,
Like half-moons,
In a magic swish
Pull a screen of indigo
Across the sky
Sprinkling a winking
Star or two.
She whistles of far-away places,
And squints to spot
The fanned-out horizons
Through lowered lashes,
Trailing behind her
Gurgly children, brass bands,
And cat gangs,
Ignoring the ringing phones
In empty booths
Along the way.

“It’s me,”
(She doesn’t have to say,)
“Where have you been?”
And suddenly the surprise
Of my own absence
Unfurls like a scarf of grief,
And I have no answer
But open my arms
And “I am back,”
(I don’t have to say).

The Princess and the Clown

(For David)

She asked me for a red-nosed clown --
I turned my pockets and I found:
A few holes, a few crumbs, and
A vast emptiness.


My words had fled without a trace,
Her outstretched hand demanded
Grace, and so we stood without
A sound, in awkwardness.



I could not tell her I was
The same: a little girl with stars
In her eyes, and the world at her
Feet, my father's princess.



No tricks up my sleeve, and a long
Way to go, I left her there sad and
Small, and went (hoping to return)
In search of readiness.

Decontextualized in 2009

at 12:10 p.m. the WC stall is blue, a look down at the corner hinges holding the walls together, and a big-lettered, blue-markered LOVE sprawling on the metallic rectangle

the exhaust fumes settle low at the red light, a glance to the right, and a rolled-down car window, with a male arm bent in the elbow, with a grey teddy-bear wedged above the wheel

a jam in the bike lane, waiting for pedestrians to cross, a whir of the bike halting to the left, a quick glance down, and a suave gecko curving around a delicate female ankle bone

a sustained whizzing of the wind, running wild on a downhill slope, caught in the interstice between helmet, ear, and earring

jeanne-mance & milton, an unexpected friend pasted in yellow rubber onto the asphalt, sending encrypted messages throughout the city, squarely, connecting everything to everything

Amputating a Wooden Leg*

I told them,
I tried to reason with them
I said look
I've had it for years,
This leg,
It's made of
Cedar
(The best wood),
It's not my
Flesh and blood
And it doesn't rot,
We've hobbled together,
Gingerly,
For a lifetime.



They wouldn't listen.
In their white coats
And thick glasses,
Like white googly-eyed
Birds
Gathered above me,
They fluttered
And flapped,
Consulted
And whispered,
Pinched
And squeezed,
Knocked and wondered
At the lack of reflex.



No one heard
My cries of protest
When they diagnosed
My wooden leg
With gangrene
And prescribed
Immediate amputation.
They asked
If I could please
Be still,
It won't take a moment,
And not to worry,
Modern technology
Offers splendid
Artificial limbs.



* A salute to Kazuo Ishiguro