And Again
I told my friend the only certainty in life is death;
this, while sitting in a hammock on the banks
of the Yuba, drying our muddy toes in the flat
California sun. I said it into the canyon. K shifted
her weight, said, I think there are lots of other things
you can count on. Your ten toes drying out in the muddy
sun. Your laugh, ringing lucky across the canyon and
your ruddy nose, a muddy cry, the fur of sadness,
again, I am certain you will feel it all again.
I could not understand, yet, what she was saying.
I could only feel that hallway closing in, the waxy sense
of that one-way ticket between my fingers.
Many sunsets passed. Now, I have seen the windows
on the train. I know there exists something other than
the serrated edge of the faceless conductor’s hole-punch.
Uma Phatak is a Marathi poet from Ellicott City, Maryland. Her writing has been supported by the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and VONA. Her poems are forthcoming in Honey Literary. She currently lives in San Francisco as a grudging cat parent.