I Saw You and I Learned This, Beloved
Sage Kapila defines destruction as cause’s return To this I bow as the customer
passes his finished dish to my hands all line & gauze Mom reads
my palm lifeline says you’ll live heavy and long
before tracing your origin All I hold are crumbs your smudged remains
naan chunk I sneak to mouth before the plate ends in a bus tub Don’t we all
bathe in demise like my fetish smiling at your funeral as I namaskaar
respect to you Bapu my cold nails your neck climbed to arrive at cause I scrub chili grime to Hindi songs your timbre (Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Jaana Sanam)
My elbow shudders at a plate stack white porcelain discs spinning
like jasmine petals in barren fields in a river in puja before shatter I stretch
for the broom smile for reason at flayed remainder my lips mute
laughter I sweep the scattered & squint for any glint in the shards
Proverb in absentia
early to bed early to lies
a man’s mimesis
breath obscured dialect
in the post-shower mirror
razor reflection of the weather
forecast with health demise
with wealth these nails bind
your ties to my collar a figure
of hope clean shaven
leash a stethoscope
to keep another’s heart
in your fist you called
wisdom these gags
a family of garments
left to us to rend
Proverb in absentia
a bird in the eye is worth squeezing the life out of
a body mostly nothing cloaked in rib & feather
a tie ornamented with wings pivots around your trachea
air & bone lined with skin stubble grown waiting
for the two in the bush a grave mistake you say
to keep palms empty like the atoms that mold
a hand out of negative charges groan for form they cannot hold
a desire violent to bond
Rushi Vyas teaches creative writing in Boulder, CO where he has served as Managing Editor of TIMBER Journal and Subito Press. His poems are forthcoming or published in Tin House, The Offing, The Journal, and elsewhere.