Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

One of us is a faucet reconciling to the temperature of indifference. This is the world: the drawer assembled by you pinches a finger before yielding. There are so many foreigners here, I said, when I first stepped onto a beach in Virginia. I had an idea of the ocean, and of who I was. I am in water now, attempting to see the ocean. We lick our wounds with the same tongue. Long accustomed to carrying a gauze for shield, the heart wraps bruises like dumplings. I see the sun through my neighbour's window, whelked in lace. Is this what we mean when we use the word "virtual"? Tulips grow even after they're cut. The ones I loved, having died without returning, crowd the heart's waiting room. To start all over again is to imagine the world is, as it is. I give up; I thought this was a poem about nation, the one she began at nineteen. The one she waits to return to: her eyes never adjusting to the colors of exile. This antechamber; this long incision called hope. Last night I crossed to the other side, unwelcome territory. I might have been sad. My broke heart. I'd been observing then, the sun's influence, subjugated by streetlights imitating moonlight. Even the sun softens, (I had thought to myself) to bring every image in view as a memory of some other place, some other text. Last night, I slept in a borrowed bed for guests I anticipated, as host to self's solitary marriage. I examined the world, thus altered. Later, standing at the precipice, I awoke. Even sleep did not take me back. And the signal—being green—I walked.

Her voice is a roundness. On full moon days, she talks about renouncing meat but the butcher has his routine. And blood. M’s wisdom. Still reliable. There are sounds we cannot hear but understand in motion. Slicing of air with hips. Crushing grass, saying these are my feet. I want my feet in my shadow. Suffice to meet desires halfway. Quiet. We say her chakras are in place. When the thermos shatters, she knows the direction of its spill. She knows how to lead and follow. Know her from this. Sounds we cannot hear. The wind blows and we say it is cool. Night slips under the door. We are tucked into bed and kissed a fleeting one. Through the curtains, her voice loosens like thread from an old blanket, row upon row. We watch her teeth in the dark and read her words. She speaks in perfect order, facing where the breeze can tug it towards canals stretching for sound. Her faith abides by the cycle of the moon. See how perfect she is.

I am saying primroses lined the pathway of toothless hedges. I am saying the ocean shimmered like corrugated steel in the morning sun. The context of my story changes when you enter. Then I am dung on the wall of the nomad’s field. Then the everyday waking person. I am nodding in your direction like fissures between dandelion fur. Seeing in your manner. I am speaking your pace. Slippage of silk slippers. I say you are losing sight. I say your breasts are dry shells. I am afraid of what I am capable of doing. This is all a manner of stating how I prepare myself to be loved.

Late for the feast. Let me guess, she said, everything worked against you. Some pulverize experiences at the pool. When the air slaps, they flip into the water and speak of the excitations of distress. The stratagems of delivering an annulled emotion. And how is one to read a nod? Is a nod an exclamation? Does one kiss after a nod? A woman mutters something about the tea being too weak. The walls threaten to expose us, shadows pinch as we mutter jouissance, jouissance, while the university teacher said the use of the word was a considerable error. A most lamentable error, given half of us are illiterate and unattached. Think of words in their system of birth. Now do you see, the teacher said. Ah, see. Dogs were barking for no reason. Some of us went to the ghats and watched the dead burn. Woman in white wailed, her hair a dumb struck line against her rocking spine. We look for other distractions in a place of death. In the afternoon meanings are extolled. We are asked to name our loves. I will not, he said, use common language to talk of love. I will not jump into the substance without reinforcement. He took his body to the breeze and swayed till we begged him to stop. The rain subsided but we were still wet. Thousands have died in a nod.

A hundred and one butter lamps are offered to my uncle who is no more. Distraction proves fatal in death. A curtain of butter imprints in air. After the burning of bones, ashes are sent on pilgrimage. You are dead, go into life, we pray. My uncle was a man given to giggles in solemn moments. Memory springs like crocuses in bloom. Self conscious and precise. Without blurring the cornea, details are resuscitated. Dried yak meat between teeth. Semblance of what is. Do not be distracted, Uncle who is no more. He does not see his reflection in the river. The arching of speech over “s” as he is becoming. Curvature of spine as it cracked on a misty morning. A shadow evades the wall. You are no more, Uncle who is no more. Every seven days he must relive his moment of expiration. The living pray frequently amid burning juniper. Communication efforts require the right initiative. Somewhere along the line matters of motion and rest are resolved. Crows pick the last offerings. You are someone else, uncle no more.