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,
Look over there. The sea has not yet appeared though we’ve been driving for two hours, though its hot and humid air closes in on us, though our clothes cling to our skin.
The only lock of hair I have ever mourned is a silky strand—a baby’s purest blond, saved from the first cut of a daughter’s hair & preserved with a photo under glass.
The soldier wears a helmet shaped like a tortoise shell. He processes my papers. Tells me the reception hall is used for karate. On stage, I pick sagebrush off
Let’s begin with the paintings, Marc Chagall’s Rain, a surreal portrait of a farm in a Russian village— with strange dreamlike childlike forms of humans & animals—
