Some girls on the other side of this planet will never know the loveliness of walking in a crepe silk sari. Instead they will spend their days on their backs for a parade of men who could be their uncles in another life. These girls memorize each slight wobble of fan blade as it cuts through the stale tea air and auto-rickshaw exhaust thick as egg curry. Men shove greasy rupees at the door for one hour in a room with a twelve-year old. One hour— One hour— One hour. And if she cries afterward her older sister will cover it up. Will rim the waterline of her eyes with kohl pencil until it looks like two popinjay moths have stopped to rest on her exquisite face.
Two Moths
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- June 15, 2024
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“Two Moths” from COME SHINING: MORE POEMS AND STORIES FROM FIFTY YEARS OF COPPER CANYON PRESS: edited by Michael Wiegers & Kaci X. Tavares.
Published by Copper Canyon Press on September 19, 2023.
Copyright © 2018 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Brimming with moments of recollection and reconnection, Come Shining: More Poems and Stories from Fifty Years of Copper Canyon Press is a testament to a half century of publishing and poetic vitality. A companion to our fiftieth anniversary anthology, A House Called Tomorrow, this collection highlights nearly one hundred poems pulled from well-loved Copper Canyon books. Poems, introduced with stories from the readers who recommended them, sit alongside occasional gifts of handwritten notes and historic photographs... Come Shining flashes with intimate insights about poetry’s power—to awaken our love for language, to guide us through momentous change, to engage our imaginations and intellects in the communal act of reading.
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