The long argument ran into a thin stream
leaped in sudden bursts, snarled over his silence

Where is the diamond I brought in marriage
the ring that I dropped into the well

He jumped in, snorted the slush of a copious monsoon
massaged her breastbone, the hands opened like a wing

arced into a cup of gift that was hers to give
The tingle of gooseberry on the teeth as he furrowed

a pathway in the room where the firewood was stored
scorpions teeming under the tiles cramped her legs

The stitches unraveled four times and the lotus leaf
bearing the lamp floated down the river

So he took her to the sea, the salty water washed
the pallid thighs, he sniffed the attar behind the earlobes

hold the seed he said, the words slimed into her
roped the womb into a pouch of rice she balled every time

she washed the palms of sesame seeds, a hand-span of life
she coaxed to breathe by climbing the hill for a glimpse of Palar

the river a trickle sank in the silence of the heart
ran dry for the first time in twenty years which was her age.