Where Do You Come From?

I come from the nether regions

They serve me pomegranate seeds with morsels of flying fish

From time to time I wear a crown of blood streaked grass.

Mama beat me when I was a child for stealing honey from a honey pot

It swung from the rafters of the kitchen.

Why I stuffed my mouth with golden stuff, no one could tell.

King Midas wore a skin that killed him.

My nails are patterned ebony, Doxil will do that

They made a port under my collar bone with a plastic tube that runs into a blood vessel.

I set out with mama from Bombay harbor.

Our steamer was SS Jehangir, in honor of the World Conqueror —

They say he knelt on the battle field to stroke the Beloved’s shadow.

The waves were dark in Bombay harbor, Gandhi wrote in his Autobiography

Writing too is an experiment with truth.

No one knows my name in Arabic means port.

On board white people would not come near us

Were they scared our brown skin would sully them?

Mama tried to teach me English in a sing song voice.

So you can swim into your life she said.

Wee child, my language tutor muttered ruler in hand, ready to strike,

Just pronounce the words right:

Pluck, pluck Suck, suck

Duck, duck

Stuck, stuck.

May 12 - July 4, 2018, NYC

Source: PoetryNow (2018)