Somoshree Palit
You say your hands are broken and coarse
Your voice, though sweet, is rough.
That decades of your songs are hoarse,
Tell me, haven’t you given enough?
Giver of life, grant me a love
Like oranges ripe in the Valencian sun;
Sinner in my arms, sinner above,
I’ll leave you hungry, leave me undone.
I see purple wisterias above your head
Like long dead deities used to wear.
A fit crown for the gods, I think,
A fit piety for me to bear.
I knew you in those ruthless days
Of stained mouth in maddened Crete,
In every verse of Attic plays
I knew the taste of your tired feet.
Like the wintry breeze of sudden south,
An apostate I was at a heathen door.
All that was wine I drank from your mouth
I ate and ate and I wanted more.
I wish to love like spinners do –
They lick the threads to paint their skies,
I’d lick your ankles as a rite of church
And the yoke of creation on your thighs.
A holy crusade to your name my love,
A thousand whips and I’ll remain your hound,
I’ll sing for you with bloodied feet
Across the bloodied ground.
I know the wealth of bread and wine,
I see Hunger in every ghost I meet,
I tell them my second poem was ‘Mine’
And my first ever was ‘I want to eat’.
Rotten, rotten, corrupted hands;
With what eyes shall I behold but you?
They’re dolled up saints for a share in your lands –
I burn countless Romes for a taste of you.
I could never be your saint and yet
Between your name and prayer I’d not choose.
Tell me, God, what prayers you hear,
Which do you grant, and which refuse?
You came over me like a holy rite –
My mouth is scarred with rhyme.
If you’d eat me whole leave out my throat –
I’d chant your name one last time.
I wish I could love you like a homeland,
My jaws on the ground and reeling of sod,
A smile to the worms that feed in the sand –
A tongue full of desire, a mouthful of god.
God I sat you on my trembling lap,
My sabbath in the cologne you wore,
They’d read you psalms in hallowed halls,
I’ll read you on my bedroom floor.
Tonight I joined the cults of search
With forgiven names etched on stones.
The baroque arch of that ancient church
Looked a lot like your collarbones.
Would I be a sinner if I loved you so?
They’d hate my piety as a harlot’s fraud.
Would they raise a tower for this devious girl,
Or a six yard pit for this fallen god?
When a piece of bread won’t fill my mouth
I would eat the church. For whom will you wait?
The ones with the cross on ivory robes or,
The one with the crucifix on her dinner plate?