by Vandana Khanna

This is how the whole holy mess
went down: cue the girl in tone-deaf
gold, drama thick in her blood. Their
love always caught in the underworld
or the other world. All vendetta and Vedas.
She woke from dreams silted with arrows,
broken teeth, the man-smell still sharp
and human on her. The birds nearsighted
with melancholy. Her heart wintering
over some god she’ll probably never
see again. He tells her to play dead, that
no one will notice— just another girl
from some hill town with her lotus-petal
eyes walking into a forest on fire.