Poem-a-Day

On the fringes of conversations
surging around me in a different language,
my tongue is frozen in English.
Silence funnels into my body
I reach for words I recognize—
‘kitap’ book, ‘café,’ brand names.

I nod and smile trying not to look demure,
use abhinaya, throw open the nine gates of emotion,
let wonder, worry, fear, ire, envy, disgust,
piety, surprise, and love cavort on my face,
my hands aiding me, a language refugee,
roaming bazaars and sun-weathered ruins.

“Thank you,” I say to the waiter, touching my heart
as he places aromatic coffee on the table.
Beyond the courtyard, the peach dome of a mosque.
I expect the muezzin to sing at noon,
remember Haji Ali dargah, a moon on the bay
on my bus rides home from college.

In Kolkata when I was 9, I’d played silently,
my ear tuned to my classmates chattering in Bengali,
drinking their words until they became mine.