Liz Irmiter

Calcutta

                  After rushing her young
daughter out of the room, she goes to the bed,
hidden only by a curtain that she draws
back with one hand, while undoing
the length of her sari - the worn
orange and brick-red woven
through with golden thread. The length of fabric
not long enough to keep her
innocent, still newly thrust into an older stage
of life. The path before her as sure
as any son of a bank president who might
pay a visit.

                  But no such son heaves himself
upon her now. Though never suffering
her eyes, he stares at her. Perhaps he is
amazed that she almost evaporates in the thick
dark of the room. He reaches
down to take a breast in each hand,
fingers teasing the nipples, the sensation
attending to his own need, that depends
on this girl for what is provided to him
while she sleeps in the back
of her mind.

                  She never dreams
that this life will guide her to a better one, because
whenever the next is, it will be better than this
life, lent to her by her own mother, whose arms
she has barely outgrown -
who had received it from her mother in the same way.




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