In a high wind, trees lacking leaves spill open
Vowels void themselves
Pity and fear subside into stones
Sentences are purged.
On a footpath where a rajah strolls
A woman’s voice sucks commas into a nest
That clings to a tree with no bark
What If He Doesn’t Want You At All?—
A sixties jingle, barely remembered,
Then – Waiting For You My Whole Life
At Last I Glimpse your Face!
Clouds concoct themselves into a scroll
Notes swirl, petals of water splash a rajah
Robbed of his elephant, strolling in unseemly heat
Brooding on his out of pocket mistresses.
Meena Alexander’s seventh book of poetry is Birthplace with Buried Stones (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2013) Her works include Illiterate Heart, winner of the PEN Open Book Award and Quickly Changing River (both published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press). She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Fault Lines (one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year) and editor of Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Everyman’s Library). Her poems have been widely translated and set to music. She has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright and Rockefeller Foundations, the ACLS and the Arts Council of England. www.meenaalexander.com
