Poem of the Week

This untitled poem is taken from the book How to Wash a Heart written by Bhanu Kapil.. Here we see a beautiful example of the lyric-narrative genre.

My grandfather fermented the yoghurt

With rose petals

And sugar then buried it

In the roots of a mango tree.

Come here, he said, extending

The sweetest fruit I have ever tasted

Come June.

On the far side of the orchard

He grew saffron and the mangoes there

Were red and pink.

In the dry well

He planted a pomegranate tree.

This is where they threw

The bodies

Come August

Noon.

Can you find your way home

By smell?

Metallic, the air tilts along a diagonal line.

I smell the pollen of the flowers of the mango tree

Which once concealed

A kill.

Bio:-

Bhanu Kapil was born in England to Indian Parents. In 1990 she moved to the USA.

In March 2020 Kapil was awarded one of eight Windham-Campbell Literature Prizes.

In January 2021, Kapil was awarded the 2020 T.S Eliot Poetry Prize for her book: How to Wash a Heart.