The Light

the light to see brides in the light to take flights in the light by which noon moves like a dagger into its sheath the light living on in the bottom of glasses the light like a tiger on a wall the red-brick light of morning crow-light fixed like a nest to a tree eight a.m. light in which the steam from a pot of slowly cooking rice in the shack across the road can be seen distinct as the steam from my tea-cup light of my life light that sings in a low husk peeling away your sleep do you have a light the light of the red moon low-hanging blood-orange fruit of a cynical night the light in which a band of boys stop cars to extract money for a function you will never attend having come from another continent having flown on the fleetness of vowels all the way from the shore of the Baltic sea from a city of mad dogs light like a wire-basket of eggs hanging from a hook in a wayside store paddy-light fluttering a scrap of white cloth snagged on a bit of wood singular light the light that moves across the room in which we shall warm the small of our backs light driven wild by teeth against tongues light of the thought that grows and grows enormous tangential like the light

is a poet, novelist and translator. Her nine published books include three poetry collections—Absent Muses, The Fried Frog and Sight May Strike You Blind; and two novels—Rupture and Land of the Well. Her translation of Sukumar Ray’s Abol Tabol is now a Puffin Classic titled Wordygurdyboom! Her poetry has been translated into German, Swiss-German, Irish, Scots, Welsh,French, Tamil, Manipuri and Bambaiyya; and her children’s fiction into Welshand Icelandic.

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