By the Seashore

Chowpatty Beach, Bombay

And there is Sanju, soda-lipped 
girl, in the summertime. And there is
Chowpatty and there is the sky and
there is the water and there are the
bodies made of salt. And there are
the dead scorpions and the plastic
and the murmurs white as a fingernails
against black sand. And there is Sanju.
Sanju sells seashells by the seashore
as Chowpatty cracks open its body
and screams lucid into the water. Sanju
sells seashells by the seashore but in dreams 
she prays for the surf to take her weak body 
until she powders to salt in the way 
only women dream of disintegrating without 
dying. And then there is Bombay, in the
summertime, where hours sink themselves
into the sea as Sanju sells seashells
by the seashore, where a god is lowered to drown in
grey tides—past the toothache women,
past the seagulls hungry for something that
transcends flesh, past the shells canine white,
past Sanju, who sells seashells by the
seashore. And there is the sky, in the
summertime, and for now, that seems
to be enough.

The Return

Southern summer: a yellow ladybug clings to an
oscillating fan in slick humidity, all earl grey sweat and
Arnold Palmers. She cannot be shaken off.

This summer is one of small thrills: all slight
boned women running to catch the tongue of the riptide,
the linen of your dress, the callouses on your hands, the click
of the umbrella in the rain. The simple snare of a bug caught
in a windshield wiper.

I am trying not to miss you in these moments, so
glassy and sheer. You were never one
for punctuality.