stupid, a kind of bracelet

by Nisha Ramayya

She is made of pale red, pink, pallid, or forming part of it, these are specific smiles. We stand on white bed sheets and tinfoil, a layer of sacred grass spread out at a sacrifice, she sits where the fire can reach her. Bound to the ground, a house-hero, carpet-knight, the pejorative feminine is unnecessary.

The jumping shapes of the painted elephant, the human-faced eagle, the white horse, the music that follows him. Sister failure pushing the reflection into her making her small, a pale red hue, rose colour.

 This relates to the patali, or trumpet flower, which you place in every hole, you must hear each part. She is quiet and still while she waits, her other rolled under the sheets, the corpsy-lumps of a body wrapped in cheap cloth. Thirty-six hours later trimmings and tearings as soft as the sound of finger finding thumb.

Words pierce (half prose half verse): she’s never looked more beautiful, or, it’s all downhill from here.

Many of these definitions mention claws falling off, a temporary symptom associated with the worm (pernicious to hair, nails, and teeth). Transcription of an old woman’s mumble [after marriage everything stops].

Zooming into her skin so close the petals appear, her face is frilled and bearing. They write songs about this, filling tips and tongues in the well of nectar of poetry, I dip mine in disease.

 A species of rice ripening in the rains, they cut her knuckles forcing the love up her arms. It can be beautiful, the side glance expressing, the rays of the ascending sun, her written skin.

The act of cutting or dividing or cutting off or mutilating (with teeth or nails), tracing her spine to mark the line she has crossed. Of an artificial poem, crying, proclaiming, a decidedly subjective title. Who can remember how many steps the ritual requires, the foot as a measure of length, forming the end, final.