those who went before me, I climb. My stone
becomes heavier. From the valley, voices rise
like smoke from incense sticks searching
for a deity. In newfound divinity, I fold
time into a fan. When its flutter stills, I wander
to a rickety playhouse below pencil sketches
of sparrows on the arches of bamboo culms.
The crayon sky, once lucid, is a plastic sheet.
Cows cut out of coconut petioles wait for evening
processions. At the threshold lined with red coral seeds
like drops of blood, we sit like portals. When we smile,
our teeth coated with sticky jaggery toffee gleam
like amber. From the family kitchen,
the scuttle of mortar and pestle. The sputter
of pungent red chili in hot oil. The rattle
of the iron bucket heaving water from the well.
Nurture and cinder. Chatter and grime. I still wear
The corset made of the gravelly voices of men
from the house. At each sunset, when my stone
roars down from the summit, I am both-
Sisyphus and the mad saint of Naranath.