From wood to wood
teak faces painted red
I wash your feet
with salt from heaven’s rim.

I observe
the eye of god
from our window I
witness
the carving of sorrow
it sprouts from Shiva’s
black hair, the Ganga
seeps from it like a serpent.

we go to the temple
complaints like cigarettes
in the stub box
smoke suffocates our hearts
so that we can offer
god only dead things.