Free Silence and the Word by MaryAnne Mohanraj Page A

time for that still center, that
space
    where you and I can co-exist. Your face
    these days is hard to bear, your eyes so
bright…
    I’ve filled my room with candles, to keep the
night
    away. I’ll step to a more measured pace;
    resist the fruitless urge to simply race
    in spinning endless circles, locked in
might-
    have-beens. Speed will not save us. So
brace
    yourself—it’s time to slow things down. Hold
tight
    to what you know. The fragile tree of
light
    you gave to me—the still and shining lace
    of silver branches, falling glass. Its
slight
    geometry holds something true, and right.
     
     
the sock tray
     
     
    folding your socks
    to insert into a plastic tray
    a sock-organizer
    I purchased
    an item
    you will never use
     
    it is partly compulsion
    a distaste for disorder
    the same urge that leads me
    to alphabetize
    your fiction
     
    it is partly a pledge
    a hope
    a desire
     
    that I will be here
    folding your socks
     
    when you return
    from Zurich
    and after
     
     
Seven Cups of Water
     
     
    My brother’s wedding day. The feasting lasted
long past dark, and I went to bed exhausted. I first peeled off my
sweat-soaked sari, rinsing my body with cool well water before
changing into the white sari I wore to sleep. The old women had
consulted the horoscopes of my brother and his young bride, had
pronounced that this day, in this month, would be luckiest, in fact
the only day that would not bring down a thousand curses on the
young couple — never mind that it was also one of the hottest days
of the year. There was no flesh left on the old women’s bones,
nothing that could drip sweat; I am sure they enjoyed making the
young ones miserable.
    I thought that for once, I would be able to
sleep. I’d been allowed a little of my father’s whiskey, to
celebrate Suneel’s wedding; I had danced with the other unmarried
girls. My sisters’ friends giggled and preened as they danced,
flashing their dark eyes and slim brown bellies at the young men
who lounged by the door, drinking. I just danced; I had no interest
in catching a man. Not that any would have spared a glance for me,
too-tall, dark Medha with coarse hair and flat chest. I danced for
myself, not for them. I danced until my feet were aching, until my
arms and legs were lead weights. I danced until Suneel and his
lovely Sushila were escorted to his bedroom, until the last piece
of rich wedding cake was eaten, and the last guest had gone. Only
then did I bathe and change, only then did I lie down on my bamboo
mat, a few feet from my peacefully sleeping sisters. And still I
could not sleep.
    It might have been the heat. Our house is
near the ocean, and usually cool breezes fill the small rooms, but
that night it was so hot that it was hard to breathe. I kept
thinking it would get cooler, but instead it got hotter and hotter.
Sweat dripped in uncomfortable trickles from my neck to my throat,
from my breasts to the hollow between them, pooling in my navel. My
mouth was dry as dead leaves, and I finally rose to get some
water.
    The house was silent. I left my sisters
sleeping, passed my parents’ room, and my brother’s. I passed the
main room, where dying flowers and bits of colored foil testified
to the day’s happy event, and finally entered my mother’s huge
kitchen. We weren’t rich, but we did have one of the largest houses
in the village. We needed it; I was the youngest of eight, and
cooking enough food for all us took many hands and pots in the
kitchen. The moonlight streamed in the window, illuminating the
rickety table where my mother chopped, the baskets of onions and
garlic and ginger and chilies, the pitcher of water that was always
kept filled. It was one of my mother’s rules — if you drank from
the pitcher, you refilled it from the well. With five daughters and
three sons, she needed many rules to keep peace in the house. Not
that we always obeyed them.
    I stepped over to the pitcher, took a tin cup
from the shelf and poured myself a