By Ami Patel

Your north vein pricks the map away

from blight & blizzard expectation

thaws your generational line vertebrae

a stack of patient villages fleshed by

the quotidian: sun-dried grass clay-red

sweat cow dung fraying cotton a river

that deserted itself even as you mirage

the delight dancing past it was 5 matlis

on her head no 7 no 10 more clay pots

than grandmother at that point after all

she was just a young woman then when

does myth become mischief the buzzy

art of shooting the shit gapata mar

aka Google couldn’t translate this:

Dadi her first friends old & precious

chipped teacups tipped laughs airy

swats there weren’t as many mosquitoes

back then Wikipedia divulges

climate change stretches migrations

now they pack & prod this unassuming

desert for blood you swallow a chalky

peach malaria pill settle into dreams

unzipped cosmic limbs such ordinary

diaspora feels ribboning your neck eye

the jammy beams of this barking night

your very own Chitra Ganesh painting

you don’t know you’ve never known

if you’re upright or if you’re orange

buckets of crushed coins from all over

guillotine your memory’s entrance

tindora leaves crawl around each other

like your uncles at the airport waving

hello beti hello come come you wake

clawing at your arms the unrelenting

green sewn into you like the final stitch

in the sari blouse they will gift you

on your last day here.

Ami Patel (she/her) is a queer, diasporic South Asian poet and Young Adult fiction writer. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and Tin House alum. Ami’s poems are published in various places, including perhappened mag, The West Review, and Moss. You can find her online at amipatelwrites.com.