Sophocles and My Dadu

I have neither met Sophocles 

nor my grandfather

both met the same fate

Sophocles died reciting a monologue 

from Antigone

and my Dadu ~ burst his vein singing a 

funeral song in a Brahman’s house

quite like an untouchable nightingale 

when it loses its voice

and all music pauses 

and Sophocles is dead

and I? I have never known him 

but I know as little of dadu

as I know of what Sophocles 

smelled like…

Maybe my Ammañ had known, 

but has she forgotten?

I am far from her to ask

Closer to Sophocles’ place of birth than hers We 

are a world apart

Separated by a Visa

You fed me fish & a poem for breakfast

You fed me fish

You fed me such that no fish bones 

slick my tongue

You fed me cornflake pistachios and kishmish swimming in lukewarm milk

Perfectly warm 

such that no heat 

burns my lips

You fed me imlee off of your veril And 

I made the face of a six year old To

watch you laugh

You fed me the taste of a curry

off of your palm

to see if I want it saltier

like the sea ~ that you are

You fed me a poem for breakfast One 

too many

And my belly was full of love

And sweet lovewords

You wrote

Perhaps when I went into a deep sleep 

Under a blanket

That you put on me

The Salad Garden

When you look, Mathematically 

close enough,

You see a dysfunctional fountain,

Left to maintenance that lets it be there

for purely the reason that it once was 

The salad garden and the tomato vines 

grow unidirectionally

as if the gardeners whispered in 

their ears, swiftly, softly

to obey a direction,

upward, upward, and then to 

a rebellious left.

The bonsais outgrowing themselves 

too big to be cute,

too less slender

and calculated in breadth,

A twin tomat-oo glaring 

in disquiet, moving with

the hellish fury of the winds 

from the north.