Rhyme of My Inheritance (audio only)
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A four-armed flutist took me
to the blue avatar: stone-blue
monkey, whiskers silver,
broken beads silver–
paint dashed by the artist on cheap paper.
Bought for a few annas, God
kneels, looks left. Intense concentration.
His ink hands rip open his chest,
pull skin aside like a velvet curtain–
Rama and Sita alive
at his core. And what devotion shall
my flesh show, and my broken-open breast.
His blueblack tail flicks upward, its dark
tip a paintbrush loaded blue.
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In barlight alchemized: gold pate, the bellmouth tenor, liquor trapped in a glass. The e-flat clarinet chases time, strings shudder, remembering the hundred tongues. Here comes old snakeshine, scrolls stored in the well, here comes the sobbing chazzan. O my lucky uncle, you've escaped the Czar's army. Thunder is sweet. Here comes the boink, boink bossa nova slant of light. Snow-dollars dissolve on a satin tongue. The river swells green, concrete trembles, and we sweat, leaning toward mikes and wires as the last tune burns down to embers. Ash- whispers. We were born before we were born.
Hooves were forbidden, but she fed us stringy liver, thick tongue, gray kishkes crammed with something soft. She had a bulb of garlic, a handful of salt, some wretched carrots. Drew out blood with salt, clamped her grinder and fed chunks into it and forced them down. She let me turn the crank, and red worms fell to the bowl. I ate according to the Law and the cow's flesh became my flesh. Now I lower my head to eat, moan when I wake from the fear dream, the one where we shove one another down the ramp toward the violent stench and the boy's knife. He lifts his arm in a rhythm I've always known.