BY RAHUL D’SILVA
Charles Aznavour is crooning about loss
and existence and loneliness and wine,
and other Gallic national concerns
and Tommy is sunning his golden fur
on checkerboard flagstones, turning over
methodically, every half hour
and my grandmother is staring at the
murky world in front of her milky eyes
saying (to no one in particular):
Before we were married, my husband used
to walk five miles, just to have tea with me.
I was once the village beauty, see.
BY RAHUL D’SILVA
Notes from India
I
After school each day I eat mangoes
from the street vendor’s cart.
Salted unripe pieces – the tart taste
makes my lips smack and thirst
for something cold and fizzy.
We aren’t supposed to eat such snacks –
Germs! They say.
You’ll fall sick!
When we get home, we eat the sweet ripe slices.
The juice dribbles down our chins.
II
On Sundays, my grandfather prepares
his special biryani.
The smell of cloves lights up the house
until we can’t focus
on our games of cards.
He makes it his way,
thick and spicy,
till the day he has a stroke.
In the hospital the blood seeps into his brain
like cardamom wafting into the ceiling.
Pictogram
My penis a sleeping seahorse
curled against your thigh,
your breasts two mangoes
nestled against my chest.
