I saw a bride splendid in white garments
I saw a woman with one hundred children 
The children plump and firm within her arms,
But some fell down or strangers took and ate them

That fire, they said, was red as red as red
as red as a fox, your lips, a cherry;
that fire, they said spread and spread and spread,
faster than a cheetah or a nasty rumour;

At swimming once,
I went to turn from front to back
and just kept turning,
just kept turning,
turning over,
over and over,
till the swimming teacher said,

Dada taught me cards.
Sitting in his suit of pants and vest.
A fistful of joker-red hair strewn across his brow.
His big belly like a cannon ball.

Five children clasping mittens
could not hug the entire trunk.
Whole hands could hide in the folds of its bark.
James, the tallest boy in class,
could sit on a root,

Dada has stories from Calcutta
wrapped up in his big belly.
When he belched they would unravel.

Now we're up on the edge

and over, on the mountain

with mountains beyond. Behind us,

            in the dark

of the valley, villages are embers

Your mother made me

write this

just in case, she said,

which kinda freaked me out,

so I said to her,

Da Man is fine, babe.

I am the word juggler.
I juggle the words
like swords.
I slice sense
with poetic license.

I feel it, first as a stir,
turning deep in the murky water.
Surfaces up for air, a twitch
on the lake in my head.
A flip, and it disappears.