By: Ajay Kumar

Beach
The sand refuses to own,
the sea denies, orphaned
the plastic breathes in undeservation- I
feel obliged to call my limbs brown describing
them under the sand even though,
there, or beneath sea-foam,
it is not seen, does not matter,
never did-

Dip in the sea to know,
there is more salt than in you, so
the kids playing beachball are just
legs with distant uncertain bodies-

You see a pearl knitting an oyster around it, taste
the ripple of reversing myth, hear
the whale, rolling up her jeans, to beach-
Open your eyes with the lightning
before thunder wakes you up-
roll up your sleeves to scoop up fish,
open your eyes the right way & see
that the whale has done what you heard her get ready for-
you could have hummed back.

###

Becauses
My parents have the power to make recipes
out of thin air & whatever remains in the
fridge-basket, beans, yam, did you not
bring garlic, I told you to bring garlic,
another yam- but the secrets that new things
keep from me, keeps me from them-
the proud cherry, royally on cream, is stripped
of its pink pride because we fight for the sponge
of the cake, because that is what we want &
always had, we fight to not-eat the cherry
because we cannot leave it or toss it away
because we have never left it or tossed it away-
each cherry a point in space, why not keep secrets
with them, start with them & move
to the old things they grow on.

###

Leaf meet button, button meet leaf
The fullness of trees keeps me from stripping.
I’d unbutton for every fall but buttons
don’t grow back as leaves do, leaves
have veins & buttons holes, leaves
hold dew like life swaddles touch, buttons
have to let it all pass through-
She makes me button from the last, make
my way up, so I don’t miss any, I still miss-
she tells her to button every button of the collar,
tells me that the second would choke a boy,
I wear two for her when I should have made
her wear one- if my fingers were made
in dreams, they’d be a jetty into the air, calling
little boats nodding in their own shadows,
to dock, but they are not, on some days
I feel my not-stripping is what keeps the trees
full & it is in your hands to cause autumn.