A Time to Dance(72)

            Not even Paati could.

            But I long to feel

            her touch.





FIGHTING PHANTOMS





Our doorbell rings. I hear Govinda’s voice.

            Before I can pull my leg on,

            he’s standing outside my bedroom door,

            saying, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”


I feel caught unawares, holding my unnatural limb in my hands,

            like a murderer dismembering a corpse.


Pain from my phantom limb

            pierces me.

            As if a million fire ants are stinging my nonexistent skin.


Govinda runs to my side.

            “Veda? What’s wrong? Tell me.”


“My

            right foot

            hurts.”

            Gasps punctuate my words.

            I grimace with pain from the ghost neither of us can see.

            “Ever had your leg go to sleep?

            Go numb for a while and later tingle back to life?

            Like that. Only my leg’s amputated.

            So it hurts worse.”


Govinda kneels.

            “Where’s the pain?” He molds my hand onto his. “Show me.”

            I guide his fingers over my ghostly foot.

            I watch him

            pressing my invisible ankle,

            rubbing my invisible instep,

            kneading my invisible toes

            as though he can sense it as clearly as I can.


My ghost pain fades.

            Bizarre.

            “Thanks.” I shudder,

            feeling like a monster.

            A half leg of my own,

            an artificial leg that can never feel,

            an imaginary leg taunting my brain,

            and one normal leg.

            “I’m a four-legged beast.

            Not a dancer.”


“The divine dancer has four arms,”

            Govinda says.

            He chants,

            “Yatho hasta thatho drishti; Yatho drishti thatho manah;

            Yatho manah thatho bhaavah; Yatho bhaavah thatho rasa.”

            The hand leads the eyes; the eyes lead the mind;

            the mind leads emotional expression;

            emotion leads to experience.

            No mention of feet

            ghostly or real.


Govinda says, “People forget what they see onstage.

            They remember only how deeply you touched their feelings.

            Akka can dance even if she’s seated the entire time.

            The best dancers

            can move an audience

            without once moving their own feet.”


Govinda flattens my palms, fingers together,

            straight except for the thumb;