| Kalpalli
From beneath the willow tree, a rib cage
of clouds appears tangled in the branches;
as it struggles out, phalanges break
delicately on the twigs.
I watch the keepers rear goats; the grass,
rich and human; flies crowd, as in a bazaar
near the smell of yesterday’s
jasmine browning in the sun.
On a day when no one is buried
in Kalpalli, it is silent like a smooth gliding
bird. The wind curves above the graves,
hollow-boned, sharp-taloned — a hawk.
If you were a bird
on Pablo Picasso’s L'enfant au pigeon
You are calm as a dove held to the chest
of a child. Caged in bones, you may be
her heart. You pulse where her fingers fold
around your body – they are pink
as arteries carrying a flush to her lips.
She watches your beak as if afraid
that you will pluck at something delicate
like the dress she wears. Blue dye spreads
from her clothes onto your feathers
so that she might be wearing you
on her sleeve.
Sometimes you are afraid
that she will let you out into the night:
there is a brightly coloured ball in the field
that perhaps she will pick up to play,
and if she does, where will you go, blue dove,
after beating your wings for so long
in the warm hold of her hands?
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Note: both poems are from the author’s poem-sequence, “Kalpalli”
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