In Sixteen Bridal Adornments You Come,
 
          opening to another. What cannot be 
 
          carried from room to room?
          You line eyes in burned ghee
          cured under the full moon,
 
          toe rings gleam 
          against your dark
 
          skin, brush the doorstep 
          of stone. You open another
 
          door. Stay there, 
          standing. Your earrings flicker, 
          thresh gold: 
 
          a votive collaboration
          with candlelight.
 
          You need another
          to light your match.

अंतिम श्वास / At My Last Breath 

A crow perches on a deer’s collapsing 
ribcage in a field of cut corn stalks, gold 
tarnished beneath snowfall. The tractor blades 
that harrowed the fawn, rust in winter wind, 
snow-bitten into fragments. Tomorrow 
asphalt cracks widen with thaw. The red 
fox curling against the highway shoulder 
widens until it opens to earth, each cell 
lifting into arid light. When the crow 
comes for me I want to recall you full-
leafed at Gaviota beach, your swimsuit 
a whelk shell ashore; for the sun of you 
to pull me up, to release me to mist.