Elizabeth Weaver
The Burning Ghat

Where the dead can float and burn, I buy you
Indian sweets by the pound, and we forget
taking pictures. Turn this way,

I would have told you, like you're looking
away from me. The news in English is all
bastard tragedy, true

and on fire. It is not my fault.
But it is also not
not my fault. In Jodhpur,

narrow, we walk single file, and you are
always in front of me, leading
past rickshaws, tea in clay cups

that shatter beneath the greasy tables, where
our shadow makes three. Sunset, we render
shoes at temples, make our soles tender for the end.

image

"Signs of Life" (detail)
Graphic by Dan Ruhrmanty.
Click for full image.