Address

Every evening the trees inhale birds
Swirling back home like a warm shawl
But I still wait for my perch in your arms

Like a peg I would hold so lightly the sheets of your nightflights
We would travel—in one mind, your old lands, my new skies
And every morning you would breathe me fly

Grand Finale

That we are scarecrows presiding over our tracts does not stop the crows from placing
feathers in our caps, and cracking up.

Or stop the termites pinching our feet; the powdery husk of their voices carries in the
wind like sawdust.

Look, there–poor dog, pissing into the breeze again, chasing the skirts of she who
does not know fidelity.

Last year’s clothes are under the deluge of sand in the hourglass of my body. Is there
time, before upside down?

I’ve lined my pockets with the fat satin of gluttony but I’ve toned my thighs on
charity walks so maybe the highway robbers will have a special smile for me.

Our greedy pens gorge on trees. What when we cover all the trees, and nothing stirs
the chrysalis?

Mani Rao