The holidays, rolling one 

 

after another like a snow-

ball downhill, bring

us together. Winter

 

myth. We are alone

 

in the cold, leaves turned

inward – dormant

until the sun melts

 

the sheets of ice draped over

us. Then we unfurl, reaching

                              out again.

 

– Kalpita Pathak

Published in Musing Publications Winter 2022

 

Data Points (12, 3, Z) 

 

(December 3, 1992) nirvana  

concert in new orleans. i push

to the front in a grey

sweater not exactly like his

but almost. he sells

the world, his brilliant head hanging

down, haunting-electric

lick whizzing past my ears, parting

my hair. so many people

trying to get him

to notice them, calling

his name. kurt kurt kurt

cracking the air, ricocheting

                                     going,

through him because he is turning

into a ghost.

 

(December 3, 2005) she is born.

not mine but mine-adjacent, her flesh

squishy, malleable, as though formed

of still-wet clay, her glassy, grey

eyes peering at this new

bright-loud world. i kiss the exquisite

lanugo on her forehead

and whisper … urvarukamiva

bandhanat mrtyor mukshiya

maamritaat*. ajoba plans to chant

the mantra at her barsa **

but i don’t want to risk

not being able to make it.

 

(December 3, 2018) the doctor puts aside

her clipboard and tells me i was right:

i am autistic. i stop lining up

my small, polished stones

by color (black with a milky

way splotch, purple water-stained

with deeper purple, grey

marked by four jupiter rings) and gaze

at my reflection

in the window overlooking

the sunlit, rainy forest – morning

dew cheeks, eyebrows

at last

drawing away from each

other. i think, i love you, kalpita. i wish

i had always known.

 

If two points make a line and three

can make a plane, what would I see if I played connect

the dots with all my December 3rds? An undiscovered

constellation of stars. A blade

of grass growing

from a crack in the brickwork. Lines and planes

on the face of a person who didn’t believe

she deserved to age.

 

* an excerpt of the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra translated to, like a cucumber from its stem, may I be freed from death, not from immortality

** Maharashtrian naming ceremony

 

– Kalpita Pathak

Published in San Pedro River Review Spring 2024

Afterword, Uvalde 2022 

 

A room, dimmed. The whole

world is a dark room. You didn’t know

 

if you could do it but you go

to the ranch – what you know think

 

of as her ranch – to see the sunrise. To see

light again, like the first

 

light that bathed the world with hope.

There a horse, nickering alone, waiting

 

for a small hand to brush his soft brown

mane. Here, the chicken coop, hens

 

clucking in the dappling shadows, waiting

for a small hand to toss them feed.

 

All the same indifferent chores, transformed

to discovery, to joy by the newness of her

 

gaze, the frankness of her love. Bright and wild

and fierce and bluebonnet. You move a bucket and find

 

one of the notes she loves (loved) to hide. The tree

words smudge beneath your tears so you fold

 

and pocket the precious paper. As dawn clears

the horizon you palm the feed

 

and scatter it over the dirt, clutching

and releasing, exactly as she once did, with hands

 

that are exactly like hers, just bigger. You watch

through her eyes and hear her sing, the echo

 

of her voice rising

to meet the day. You hold the babies one

 

at a time – duckling puppy, piglet, kids – and feel

the warmth of her happy-flushed cheek pressing

 

against yours. You pile the raked leaves and jump

in, her laugh pulling from your throat. With you, always

 

with(in) you. You smell the fresh earth, turned over

by beaks, by hooves, by boots, by worms, by wind. Turning

 

turning. She turns and walks into the golden sky.

 

– Kalpita Pathak

Published in South Dakota Review 59.2

Go Ahead, It’s Yours 

 

This time, I took the last

cookie. It was a little

stale. I bit into it and it snapped

in two with a sound like a brittle

heart breaking. I ate both halves and left

the crumbs for you to clean up.

 

– Kalpita Pathak 

Spring Cleaning: The Photograph of Better Days

 

I find it, wedged in the corner

between my bed and the wall,

fingerprints and powdery ash

smeared over it. A yellow crescent

of scotch or maybe coffee. My niece

is laughing as I swing her

in the air, her bootied pajamas

terry-soft, like a towel in my palms.

I’m in a swimsuit, having just

done the laps that strengthen

my heart for these rough times. 

 

 

– Kalpita Pathak