Once you were imprisoned for laziness
all summer behind a pirate patch.
Made me the one-eyed oddity
in the neighborhood. Found
wanting. Under pressure
of the black ants that crawled
across the fourth row of the eye chart.
You saw a father worried he has a girl
who wears glasses.
Girl, you’re soldier
and queen: one of two
sultanas dreaming in their harem, walled
behind glass, unveiled only to the favored.
Remember the time somebody’s mother
waved a wand of mascara for a school concert
and called you gorgeous? I was shaken
down to my skinned knees. And that time
when a piece of you stuck
to a contact lens and tore? Scarred, you tilt
towards the dark, fuzzy logic
of memorized street signs.
In the mirror, a forest of names
you’ve called me
none of them Song. But that is history.
I offer you sliced cucumbers, rosewater.
Everything you touch is mine. All the light
you hold. All your shine.
–
Yamini Pathak is the author of poetry chapbooks, Atlas of Lost Places (Milk and Cake Press) and Breath Fire Water Song (Ghost City Press). Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Waxwing, Tupelo Quarterly, About Place Journal, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from Antioch University, LA. Born in India, she lives with her family in New Jersey.