Devaki D. Devi​

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Even though I am sick in other ways, I'm often convinced I have an affliction of the heart. 

 

I see your face from over your shoulder in the dish you're cleaning. Rainbow soap streaks down from your reflected eyes. The bubble trails look like tears, but more lively. 

 

I complain sometimes that my spine feels too thin, like the string of a balloon. At night, you put your palms on either side of my face and tell me to breathe. I am not flying away, over the mountains, you say. But your hands are so cool from the washing, like the wind. 

 

Sometimes we dry our clothes in the sun. I spill rice grains over the same porch for the birds. We say it's as if we're in India, but that's the furthest we can take the sentence. 

 

The porch is as far as I can walk, even with my cane. I sit there when you aren't home. The view is mostly sky and a little bit of road. 

 

One night I find you brushing every last rice grain into your palms, uneaten. How long were you going to let me carry on believing? Hey, it's not like I need to think I'm doing something 

 

Just because I'm sick. You don't need to lie about the birds, the love, the staying. You can leave me and run and be free. 

 

You look at me. A month ago I saw the bone of your ankle dilate like a pupil as you strained over a plastic chair. You were replacing a lightbulb, up on your toes, unscrewing an unlit moon

 

With the palm you use to rouse me awake. Now, the click of your finger against the lamp switch. The delicate tremble of filament,

 

And I want to apologize. This intricate world – I'm sorry, I was lost, I'd forgotten it. The regret is on my lips. But there are so many others, like rain, like rice grains. I want to tell you 

 

To leave them out, just one night. Trust my small work. The little light I move

 

With my palms. I take the oil of your hair to my chest. It is only that in this country, which we know too well,

 

Birds are not used to being fed. Give them some time, I say, to learn,

 

To learn how to take.​​

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