This isn’t my birthplace and I am
louder for my heart is misplaced;
I dwindle but first I do no harm.
Then I turn calm, you must come
too–time shrugs on, on its own.
*
He hugs the walls when he walks
my sister says of our dad.
We should have bars in the shower
my husband says of my dad.
I think of my dad–
mightiest of his four brothers
how he sat all his brothers on his
meaty biceps–or was that Bhima
also second-born–I’m confused
by the words rolling in my mouth.
*
It’s easy to break, ask water–what’s
next in the shadow of time’s coming.
Of first learning to trust every day’s
ordinary dance, stepping to calm,
to harm; saying: I’ll take it.