Tonight, It Is Snowing in Rome

is a line that I wrote in my notebook
inside my hotel in Prague, where a woman I did not know
slept next to me, and outside the world slept, too.

Snow fell down on the cobblestone streets.
Some part of me was on alert, but I told myself
   there is no danger here.

Each morning in Prague, I woke up
and ate hard-boiled eggs with ham and tomatoes with bread 
and butter and jam. I warmed my sweater 
over the heater while I braided my hair. Who was I
to be anywhere? Walking along the Vltava

I was cold but still alive.
Back at college, my life had become something else.
When my boyfriend would shove me, I 
would sometimes cry, but only 
when he could not see me.

I boarded a plane to Prague because my school 
gave me a list of cities, and I picked a beautiful one. 
Laying in the hotel’s narrow twin bed, I closed 
my eyes. Before my grandmother died

there were signs. In Prague, the story I replayed
was from Mumbai: my grandmother bent over to get something
from the fridge, when she heard her caretaker unbuckle
his belt and unzip his pants, his waist closing in.

          How should I prepare for all
          the things I cannot see?

          In Prague, I was supposed to develop 
          my voice. Instead, I watched a lot of plays. There was
          one: a dark comedy where a woman is raped. 
          The actor grabbed the actress by her armpits and swung 
          so fast her legs took flight. She made contact 
          with the wall.

I don’t remember the rest of the play
just like I don’t remember the last thing 
my grandmother said to me, but maybe 
it had something to do with my studies, or the eventual 
Good Man her prayers would lead me
to marry, or maybe she just asked me to pray.