it’s true that books
can take you anywhere.
hunger roots you
firmly in a body.

reading, i become
voices in the dark.

poetry is
a voice, self-
lightening.

witness to ways
waves move, as their own
mostly hidden seasons.

everything independently
becomes a turning
Inferno.

we are sloshing buckets,
pitchers pouring
into rivers, subterranean.

all of it true,
at once.

Hanuman is only
a secret patron
of poets.

//