HERE...

Fear separates
reconstituting
as threats
making you hoarse
your voice shake.
Separates
into segments
like oranges,
reconstitutes
like dropped
mercury
(things quite bad for you)
I would chew them them out
for you


_

COME HOME

(for A.D.D-L)

Sugared gaze

your tongue a key
then you
forget yourself

and implore me

or a oh god
you don’t even
believe in.

My heart pounds

Further down
(for now)
with the pulse

Of the universe

_

Such As

Yesterday my mom and Big A both took planes. Big A for job interviews; my mom to go home. I started crying at the airport and didn’t stop till I went to bed early with the babies.

So yes, I missed and moped for my man and my ma, but despite the leaden, weepy way the day (and the weather) started out today--I felt less and less child bride/teen mom with each passing hour. (Needless to say, I’m neither child nor teen, but I think the two who took planes are sometimes guilty of treating me thus. Such as.)


Also, in seriously funny stuff--I’m going to see the Russell Peters show at MSG on Fri. YES! Big A got me stage-side tix and I’m going with P who is a childhood friend or cousin (yeah, only like about 26 times removed), but actually feels like my sister. (cough) Such as (cough). Man, I tell you--somebody gonna get a hurt real bad.

_

AMMA

From across the oceans
and many days away
I can call your name
(Like this.)

_

Sex with squeaky clean hair

There’s a book (not new translation) on the KamaSutra by James McConnachie called The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra. I currently own five copies of the KamaSutra, my first being the Richard Burton translation. Actually, that was a bad beginning since Burton confused rather than edified me. And it wasn’t the Victorian English--it was because all the sage advice regarding seduction, usually began with “shampooing” various body parts. All the impromptu (and extensive) shampooing fairly boggled my mind until I got my first year of college Sanskrit and realized that “shampoo” was probably “champu” i.e. massage. So much for my impression that those lusty ancient Indians had squeaky clean hair.

According to The Guardian review, McConnachie’s book depicts the KamaSutra as an anti-feminist male fantasy--I wonder if he’s seen the Wendy Doniger translation, which attempts a decidedly feminist take on sexual pleasure in the KamaSutra.

_

Rights and wrongs

In the dialogue between asserting universal human rights and assertive identity politics, it usually boils down to a tussle about FGM--how far are you willing to compromise your beliefs about human rights to endure an ethnic minority’s systematic injuries to its female young? Here’s yet another illustration on those similar lines: Women Lose in Mexico Indian Rights Gain.

_

CRUSH

You say:

It really does happen
when
you’re not looking

Swept Away
Blindsided
By Accident

I wonder:

Why
you keep thinking
it’s a bad thing

_