By Archana Sridhar
Dried like a shard of a clay cup
we tossed by the side of the road
at that coffee stall on the way to Mysore.
A sliver of Revlon nail polish in ruby red,
carefully applied each morning with a mantra,
carelessly peeled off each night with a scratch.
That day, my father blew on her iris gently
like the trade winds that wrapped around
the blue earth, whooshing east to west.
The old world caught, then dislodged,
fell right into her lap, then flaked away
onto the Queens floorboards.
Comments