Arrival

After three years of wandering
I came to Varanasi, a city famous for silk,
music, yoga, and death, where the river
Ganga Ma brings eternal life and ends
the grueling cycle of rebirth.
She gave me pinkeye and washed my sins away.
The yoga studio windows stayed open
for light and air. Students from the world over
spoke varied versions of English
while Sunil, our teacher, belly-laughed like a god.
After practice we ate rice pancakes,
drank extra spicy tea. One morning
a guy I didn’t know said
I just threw my passport into the river.
Chucked it away. I’m staying.
I understand him now, years later
as I stroke the face beside mine.
Content to end the cycle of departure,
arrival, departure, I’ve given my life
to this woman. I praise her every day.
Our home is a temple, a whole holy city
full of color, yards of silk, vendors crying
Only the best for you, madam. This one is best quality.
I’ve thrown my passport away.

*Originally published in The Equinox

Plants and Stones

Twenty one years old, I’d found
someone, an inappropriate man
with an unpredictable temper.
We planted tomatoes and sunflowers.
I hoped our love would grow.

His Italian grandmother
introduced me to artichokes.
His niece drew weddings
on luminous summer evenings.
Everyone admired my ring
its band of gold, its tiny stones.

What a lovely idea to be a wife!
A smiling doll, a ceaseless piece
of sandpaper to his roughness
cooking rice with peas and salmon
while he poured concrete.

Part of me dreamed while part of me dreaded.
I wanted to leave but had no excuse.
I teetered away from him at night
on a too small, borrowed bicycle
a blue stone in my pocket that he’d carved.

When my chance came, I took it.
Botany was my ticket north.
I memorized phyla, diagrammed nuclei,
was too busy to visit or phone.

I returned the ring to him.
The stone I returned to the ground.
The pretend I returned to the
dark place it came from.

*Originally published in Kalliope.