I Ride upon a Tiger,

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