Upon Finding Ganesh in the Medicine Cabinet, he asks for Wisdom in Small Doses
"Why do you always bury the important things?" he asks
twisting my hair in his pale hands.
"What makes you think a small elephant is all important?"
After that, he excavates all the inner sanctums.
Tries to unearth the stacks of incense in the back drawer,
discover the beaded salowars beneath the dress shirts.
He fishes out the lunar calendar, mines through
stacks of textbooks and fiction
for the Gita and Upanishads.
"It's just so easy to forget you're from somewhere else."
he says brushing my eyebrows into organized arcs.
I set out to sharpen the contrast between our bodies:
sit in the sun til arms and legs warm to a burnt cinnamon,
tend carelessly to my hair's ferocious wave
flaunt the width of my ample hips.
"What is it that you keep leaving behind?" he asks.
I tell him about the sounds in my alphabet:
the a that arches and folds like crisp bed sheets,
the multi-syllabic s like a drooping coconut palm.
I use Bengali words in public; yellow my hands with tumeric,
stare at his palms as if I know the roots of each sacred river
sing hymns under my breath like approaching rain.
"What is it that you are trying to say?" he asks
Hidoy, bhalobhasha, prem, ashanti I shout
my brown arms wrapped
around his white body in our dark bed.
"I don't understand." he says.
