From Under a Sari
I have slipped you, this single poem,
over her bare brown toe
as a third silver ring,
one I cannot remove as easily.
Why, she asks in her sleep, my toe?
Why not another swirling gold bracelet
or fourth eye, something grandchildren
can tug and kiss and remember in their age
indecipherable from my memory?
But of the wisdom a simple trinket bestows
I know little
and dare only what few will see-
this ornament of words
that may, I fear,
hang from her like a cross.
No, it is simpler still.
I’ve not the courage to inspect
the world still hidden
that heaves and dreams on this bench
like living soil,
with only roots exposed.
Where best to lay a poem
than upon what stretches deepest
and, unseen, absorbs from those dearest
all tomorrow’s fallen tears?
-published by Arlington Literary Journal
