before becoming

from the same morning enroute Delhi to Agra…in search of an ancestry as good as dead.

before becoming

remember, love? the
taste
of a young winter morning

before becoming [remembering]

sifting through strangeness
of gold weighted air
through
cotton webs of memory-

crisscrossing through power lines
my
long walks to the convent, I
carved
forgotten trails through foothills

little feet swayed by giant imaginings
mist on my tongue

it, seeps through my
hungry pores and, now
cleanses