Varuna

Our home is a jagged mouth,
streaming out pleas to the dead
We are misshapen teeth
uprooting ourselves

But we could have spent our time
burying strangers instead
We would’ve settled in
and found out our names

But calm your heart
The dark is still the dark

We’d told our sons to wait their turns,
like eager months lined up in herds
to age our skin and stretch us out.
They never get tired of stretching us out.

We read the braille with our bare feet
It would not teach us how to see,
But we finally realized ourselves.

Varuna is counting the notches and nicks in our planks.
Do we deserve the grave,
or the table you set for the liars
and unloving husbands and wives?
They hadn’t seen themselves
They couldn’t have known.

But face that fact,
Every branch you cut grows back.

And we’re growing into the thought
that we’re cast like iron,
forced into these shapes.