here are the people who root for you
even before they spread a putrid leaf
over you like a coin. my mother repeats
this one story: how once she opened
her eyes from the coma and saw through
a part in the green curtain a man burning.
how do i name that smell which only pearls
inside the folds of that green curtain: unseen
by my nose, unheard by the stethoscope.
imagine a forest fire but inside an urn.
i wear a shirt over the shirt i forgot i was
wearing and my body flies from skin to hide.
your dosed face was the carcass of a veil
that i've seen my mother wear. when i held
my hand out to you it was a shovel still
mudded from my mother's grave but you
still held on. she did too. you and her rose
like shovels wedged in the sand shifting
beneath the waves of my retreat. all i ask
of you is to wear me like the buttonmissing
shirt and go look for the buttons.
it was during the first world war
that they moved from white to green.
it took a war to know that blood
stood out. but the war's over now:
we're here, rooting, for you, our tree.
go looking. but wear something.
~ ajay
8/6/2024
revised version published in The Bombay Literary Magazine
