Attention darling I am not blaming you for the purchase of one
narcoleptic fish
Who knows a
fish
to slip in
and out
of sleep as
easily as well a fish
with a
sleeping disorder
Nor am I
angry for the sessions
with the
energy worker who swears
she is
making progress with dear
what’s his
name I’m not sorry
I had to
sell my fiddle for these
treatments
You remind
me that raising
a window
is strenuous
enough
my shoulder always ached
from that
damn instrument
under chin
position
Who
cares
about the
training or the fact that I was gifted
that
fiddle from a professional
in
Mexico
There will
be more
fiddles you tell me but there will never
be another
fish not another fish
who speaks
to you as well as you
wish I spoke
to you
like The Man
With Two Brains where Steve
Martin can
hear the inner voice of the brain of the woman
whose body
is no longer living
Except this
isn’t a woman it’s marine life
Don’t think
I didn’t
notice your mouth
on the
bowl saying nothing
because you
believe he can hear you too
It’s
that I’m confused
This is a
different
species same sex and I wonder
if you are trying
to tell me something
Pluck
me from this like your lips
from what
used to be mine now replaced
by glass
that keeps you from devouring your little
fish
or like my
fingers from that violin
Tell me do
you still hear the screaming
To Church, To Market
Who couldn’t
fall in love
over
nectarines
two chins
cupping juice
the
confluence between
jaw/jaw
peach/plum his/her
palm atop
palm.
Here in the
market, stand
how many
ways to kiss
over corn,
make church
in the
hollow of strawberry.
Find
yourself with the young
dahlia
grower and find yourself
behind
tent. Himalayan berry
in reach.
Thorns may seek
your hands,
offer them
as you would
before Easter.
For now,
there is river
enough for
cleansing.
Whiskey,
like summer
in your
teacup.
And what if everything
is a
shutter, a blind
the beak of
a small bird before
melody—the
pause after love
before love
which is
now. Now
you are in a field of daffodils
—
no—
you are in a
field of living
mines and
there is nothing so vivid
as your
partner’s eyes, nothing so blank
as your
face, but you are living and will
live as you
dismantle what you never
wished—
If you bend
left,
you witness
the scene before
dying
there may be light
or the
author might open you
to the great
blanket
of snow
like years
each slope
the perfect
pitch, a
body of unending—
If you angle
right—this is not political—
if you trod
right there is memory
before this, before your first
taste of
sour you loved
tangerines you knew everything
crashed
Letter to a Lover Whose Name Spells
Dark Bird
Look, when you call—bring the
basket
the one I lent
you last winter.
Please forget
the
strawberries, this summer
has left them
parched.
Freezing,
thawing
only makes
strawberry soup.
Pluck the
blossom whose name is scarlet—
the one by the
stairs that should not be flourishing so late.
Its body reminds me of tango—
the year we
spent a lifetime
sailing in the
boat of our bed. Our bed
a single
mattress
on mahogany.
And when you
slice flower
from stem, do
not harm your finger.
An
unremarkable red, leaves the stem
tainted. Blood
leeches your body.
Meet me
and we will
share something with lime,
maraschino,
consider the fresh water—
how we once
became it, our limbs liquid
our eyes
opening like lilies. Meet me and we will
forget our
bodies were ever anything but
a little salt,
water
waiting to be
stirred.
Natasha Kochicheril Moni
writes and
resides in the Bay Area. Her poetry, fiction, essays and reviews have been
published in numerous journals including: Verse, Rattle, Santa Fe Writers
Project and Other Voices Poetry. Three of her poetry mss have been
semifinalists in Black Lawrence Press competitions and one of her mss was a
finalist in a Kundiman competition for emerging Asian-Amercian writers.