Indians drink hot tea on hot days
cool their insides; sweat it out.
They put bits of curry powder
in baby bottles, so the spice feels
constant and normal.
I don't know if these things are true.
I know how to offer a hot meal.
I know how to ask how the day is.
Marathi is a clicking language of
perfect-fitting syllables
sanded rosewood inlaid in smooth carvings,
the backgammon board my Uncle sent,
the side table with the elephant
faces carved onto the legs.
(Those elephant eyes,
glassy and stuck,
met mine as a child.
Pleaded with me
to take that tabletop off their backs.
I didn't pity them.)
I don't know the Marathi word
for love or god or rain
or tin roof.
My aunt, alone in boarding school
lies in bed, listens, shivers
through Monsoon season-
she calls that the loneliest sound.
I saw the Indian trains in a movie.
The director cranked the colors,
to over-saturate.
People found it very beautiful.
My father, four, toe-headed
is lifted to the upper berth,
waves money out slotted windows to buy chapati.
Waves goodbye. His parents
walk back to their house where the
bamboo fans move across the high ceilings.
Would you like a hot meal?
How are you? I am fine.
This is all I ever imagine them saying
to one another.
My grandma's sari gapes against
places that were once curved--
she is too sad to eat in this country.
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