A Time to Dance(64)

            The yellow paper tail loops, swirls,

            climbs until it’s a tiny golden streak,

            long tail glittering.

            I take tiny steps, forward and back.

            The sun warms my face and I feel the wind racing

            as if my kite is carrying me into the sky.

            I feel small. Light.

            Hear a tinkling tune in my ears—high and sweet—

            the sound of silver bells.

            I almost feel the way I did as a child, dancing.


Govinda says, as though he can read my mind,

            “That’s what the best dancers do.

            They focus on dance.

            They forget their feet, their bodies,

            their dancer selves.

            They let dance tug their souls upward.

            And as they rise,

            they lift their audiences closer to heaven, too.”





ABSOLUTE





Joyful music plays in my head all the next day. But

            when I come home from school,

            an ambulance is screeching

            away from our building.

            “Paati collapsed,” I hear Ma say.

            “Pa’s in the ambulance with her.”


The music stops.


Mrs. Subramaniam runs out of her apartment.

            I hear her shocked voice

            asking what happened, which hospital.

            Calling a taxi to rush us there.


My tongue is frozen.

            Chandra told me once about absolute zero,

            a temperature cold enough to bring

            the universe to a standstill.

            My heart feels like it’s at absolute zero.


Pa meets me and Ma in the hospital waiting room,

            his cheeks shrunk with worry.

            Heart attack, he says, but she survived.

            Thank God. Ma sobs.

            Pa and Ma lean against one another.

            Shivering, I sink into a chair.





NIGHT





My room feels deathly silent

            without Paati’s breath lulling me to sleep.


I run my fingertips over the feet

            of my bronze statue of Shiva dancing

            on the table between our beds.

            “Please. Let Paati come back home.”

            Moonlight drips into the dark room.

            I slip out of bed, crawl on the floor,

            yank open the metal trunk beneath Paati’s bed,

            in which she stores her things,

            and drink in the soothing basil-aloe scent of her soap.

            Paati’s saris glow,

            a shell-bright patch of white.

            I take a sari out of the trunk.

            Lay it on my pillow.

            Bury my face in it.

            Let it soak up my tears.