my bones are made of whales,
and when whales die, their songs.
My eyes are pits
of mangos, scraped clean of sweet.
From my feet plunge fifty streams—
the rush, the cold
exposes underworlds of fear.
Four stomachs cannot explain my hungers.
I have devoured myself. I tread upon my loves.
I have been strung with a necklace
of hummingbirds, my hair
in braids, my braids are tongues.
Atop my head, a crown of forty
languages, spoken all at once.
My breastplates gleam and thrum,
two armies, marching on. You,
who extract the marrow and the light.
You, who suck the sun and leave
the bone eroded colder—Demon, disease,
dear fated one. Do you hear? I will come
to you on the back of a tiger.
Kirun Kapur
