Guards at the Taj

Nearly asleep again in my arms after hunger

woke her in the middle of the night,

my daughter discovers her hands and, dazed,

studies the small movements they can make,

amazed to find they’re hers to manipulate.

Years ago, on a hot afternoon in Agra,

our guide recited the same tired anecdotes

as we walked the crowded streets

toward the mausoleum: that guards at the Taj

were forbidden to look in during the building,

that some went mad waiting for years

to glimpse the dome after the barrier walls

were torn down. It might be a myth—

how Shah Jahan ordered his soldiers

to cut off the hands of the craftsmen

to keep them from repeating the wonder—

but even myths can trigger belief.

How long would it have taken them—

the guards—to grow numb to its beauty?

Our guide had visited too often to find

any revelations and hung back in the shade

of a banyan as we approached the tomb.

I remember the buzz in the queue, gasps

of visitors as they passed through the gate,

language failing the deeper in we walked.

Now, a clear night, in the glow of the moon,

my daughter’s attention to the routine magic

of our bodies, to the draw of color

and shape. My daughter, a conduit

through which I notice, again, my hands

and what they’re holding, the massive

towers we’ve built outside our windows,

and a night train—empty at this hour,

or taking some lone soul home—

flashing in the gap between two high-rises.