Poetry

Under the oppressive July heat, I carry
my aching body, sweat-coated and glistening, 
up the staircase spiraling and spiraling skyward
until I arrive. Within, a sightless darkness—

The city could be choked with wreckage, 
and still the children would clear
a patch for a football field.

When he wrote, “I like for you to be still,” 
did he imagine that house, its coconut trees
looming against the sun-soaked sky, their kurumbatti 
scattered like fists on the grass in the yard where 
 

There is no hope
but there are nights, and trees, 
and narrow streets.
There are two people whispering 
while everyone else sleeps.
There are shadows, odd flowers,

It’s 7 a.m. The bugle sprays and sounds like hot sunlight.
I roll off my straw mattress. A wave of grass bursts through

That’s not your neighbor,
           that’s the disease talking 
                     to her mailbox, pleading

                               for a letter from her dead 
                     husband or distant son

A little death—a sky 
with geese stitched on.
My fears are all explainable— 
it’s cortisol, it’s fate, 
the jerk of mercury, 
the joints’ arthritic 
prescience about rain.

Senior year he made us girls file into the gym for martial arts.

Next year, you may need to protect yourselves, he bellowed.

Picking out a wreath at Clancy’s 
in the brisk elbows of light
I smell mountains you love