In a Line, My Aunties Wait for Their Turn to Place Their Palms on My Skin. 

 

 

Your diaphragm has been stuffed with dandelions, they say. We’ve seen this before, they say. When a woman’s body fills every breath with a stem. 

 

They dig their fingers underneath my ribs

 

                                      pluck yellow petal 

                                                                         by yellow petal 

 

telling me ha ha ha like this make sure you feel the contracting of the diaphragm. Make sure you account for each breath when you sing 

                                                                                                                 kshama karo

 

                                                     raksha karo. 

 

You have been calling any entity, they’ve said

 

                                                                                        and now they are rupturing from you.

 

            All in the name of beej mantras 

                                               

                                                                            piled onto the butterfly wings of my thyroid.

           

                        It’s true.

 

The night I lost my body for the first time, I asked the sky to paint me into sunset. I let the moths nest behind my knees. I filled my body with rain, piss, my mother’s tears until I was a polluted sea. 

 

My aunties dig, filling their palms with my salt. 

 

                                                 Shanti Shanti Shanti, they chant into my belly button 

 

and out spurts the rum rot, the moon crust,

 

                                        the wind I ate last supper, carvings of fingers too big to be mine. 

 

They pet my hair, every touch feeling like my mother’s, who has yet to step into the room. We’ve seen this before, they say. You’re in there somewhere, they say.