Backstage    behind the screen he showed them to you shiny brass profiles elaborately cut with flared sleeves and big heads one mouth an open beak If you are [...]

          The noise of the broken spine of an ant here on earth is nothing           in (God's) holy precincts it [...]

When rain rains steadily on roof and deck knocking in gutters splattering against the window as if flung by a Millet farmer sowing rain we stay inside all day [...]

Breathless I stopped mid-climb air-piercing atomic greens and yellows arrowed toward me   terrified of the beak I jerked my face aside   He stood beside me cupping the bird [...]

            From Manipur they came             to dance Priyadarshi's transformation When he returned victorious riding his bull elephant bleeding corpses moaned To silence them [...]

The tribal holy man thought about the gods who were inscrutable so he prescribed laws and the people planted rows of wheat scooped channels for the hidden-spring spirit laid vermillion [...]

If we have no sticks for fire when we come to the land of no water buttes with wind-scoured skulls tumbleweed   spiny scrub we metamorphose into stones some ghost [...]