Three Hours to Burn a Body
Varanasi, India
We have come to watch the bodies burn,
our guide shoos away beggars and children,
selling shells of light and orange marigolds—
An offering for Mother Ganga. The murky river
sways with candles, a thousand dawn-lit stars.
The sky’s stars hidden by a canvas of clouds.
Untouchables travel barefoot down sandy stairs,
carrying another gold-clad body on their shoulders.
They chant, and the families follow their dead.
I watch them tend the “eternal flame,” watch
the living to avoid the dead. The guide says,
“This one almost finished,” points to a pyre.
A flame twists from the ghost of an eye.
“Three hours,” he says, “to burn a body.”
My legs hot from flame, ash rains onto my hair.
“Good luck,” he points to the ash, “Very good luck,
indeed…Come,” he leads us to a concrete building.
A creased, toothless woman holds out her hand.
A wrinkled breast sags from the sari. She tucks it back
without apology. The guide tells us, “She needs money
for her pyre. Good karma for you.” We hand her 500 rupees,
She hides it in her sari, lies back onto the straw mat,
the cold concrete floor. The boatman waits. We row
down the river. Dawn prayers echo from a mosque.
A dying cow moans from the river’s bank.
White branches of smoke rise from each black smudge
in the sand, disappear into the white horizon.
Children run above, along the rooftops.
Fires below create hot wind, lifting
colorful kites and children’s laughter to flight.
* Previously published in National Geographic Traveler and Three Hours to Burn a Body: Poems on Travel
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Between Midnight and Dawn
San Jose, Costa Rica
The taxi’s horn echoes
through rain—August,
the green season, your winter.
You say, there’s still time.
Shadows drift—window bars
the yellow burn of streetlamps.
There is no word
in English for this time
between night and day,
madrugada, the gray pre-dawn,
the nearly—mouths sour,
sheets salty from sweat,
from lust. These bones, no borders
beneath the thin skin of hunger.
Synapses still fire the rhythms
of salsa. Madrugada,
when the leaving becomes
part of the other world,
of sleep, of dreams,
when the dawn unties
the earth from sky.
There is no word for this.
I rise from the mattress
on the floor, gather my things,
dress in the dark. You follow me
barefoot into the street,
hand me my bag, kiss
my cheek. Hasta means
I won’t see you again.
* Previously published in 4AM and Nothing to You
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Textiles
Agua Caliente, Guatemala
She kneels on the cracked earth,
braids fabric—red and black
figures on green—shapes
of flowers and birds. She weaves
in blue, yellow. Callused fingers
recreate sky—the moon and sun.
At five, she sold her first huipil.
Her toes bent beneath her,
the balls of her feet white
like garlic bulbs. A baby sleeps
in a green sling on her back.
I ask her, ¿Cuántos años tiene?
She answers, Diez y ocho—
eighteen years old, asks me
how many children I have.
None. Her forehead wrinkles.
She smiles, says, Todavía no,
not yet. I am old enough
to be her mother. She turns
back to weaving, tells me
yellow is corn, blue is for the sea.
She says red symbolizes blood,
black is for war. Siempre,
she says, Always the war.
Green is reality.
* Previously published in Smartish Pace and Nothing to You
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