Poetry
Spring 1999
Dream of the Evil Servant
New Delhi, 1967 1. We kept war in the kitchen. She ruined dinner dishes. She broke two. A set of ten bone china plates, now eight. As if a perfumed […]
Poetry
Autumn 1994
Underground
Patiala, Punjab, 1966-67 1. Mummy said mali dug the shelter fourteen feet by ten by ten. For three days his head went lower down until I only saw a batch […]
Poetry
Autumn 1994
In the War, 1966-67
I later learned we ate our milking goats when meat was scarce in the war, and that our houseboy, Harichand, had to slaughter them and that he was not to […]
Poetry
Autumn 1994
Housekeeping in the New World
Maryland, 1969 She cut her hair and joined a writing class. But odder still to him, she never wrote to relatives. She bought foreign plants and rooted vines on every […]
Poetry
Winter 1993
Thinking about Citizenship while the Workmen Are Here
for R.M.H. (1904-1990) 1. The Halting Foot I hear Bill Randall’s hammer fastening Sheetrock in our new room, drills gnawing through plywood. When I meet the workmen early on the […]
Poetry
Spring 1992
Mica
Most weekends, surgeons came for lamb and raita, masala, rice and pista-badam custard. American jokes in your Indian accent brought the whole room hiccups. Laughter was your chance to check […]
Poetry
Spring 1992
Lobster
I don’t think you ever got used to crabs whose claws you extracted with dental forceps. You preferred cut-up meat with fulkas, but your Karachi youth could not resist the […]
Poetry
Spring 1992
Devi
Her father is your father; my aunt your eldest sister, Devi, meaning light. Eight twenty-two karat bangles ring on her wrist as she inches between her bed, the basin, a […]
Poetry
Spring 1992
On the Fast Train
I begin thus: a Rajdhani Express: Delhi, Howrah, Victoria Terminus. In India I course a triangular route from cousin to cousin despite the fall heat and slow mail. I lower […]