I go swimming through the warehouse in the summer,

down by the river with the barges chugging by. I go diving

in the dark hill with the ring of bolts around it, all alike. 

I came across the bars of a perfect copper cage and slipped inside and waited

while my air supply got low. I nearly fell asleep and dreamed. 

I thought my hair in the water was a spider. I thought a shark 

appeared in the weeds and swam toward me,

blue and rubbery, and nudged the bars of my cage where I floated

and stared. It was like the movies, where animals have feelings.

It looked into my eyes without emotion, but I have so much of that 

to spare. 

he jumped into the water naked,

the only man-made sound, 

and didn’t come out for hours. he was pickled 

like a radish, he was easy. 

he was thinking about his unhappiness;

he was thinking about the woman he missed.

he made a sound like sighing, but not like a very

sad sigh. he was thinking of his debts. 

he was thinking of his father. he had a chocolate bar 

half melted in his pocket.

he climbed across a tree trunk 

with a million insects crawling. he touched the sap,

he scratched his leg. he ran his hands through his hair.

he heard a rustle and looked around, and tensed his mouth, 

and walked ahead. and here I am, a leap away, 

the ground turning cooler, the moon already up, 

all the leaves turning white.

At any moment, lines form all over.

I take a step, I shift my feet from one point to another. False start.

Between myself and my beloved

lies a third point, unseen.

The sky is milk.

I get in the car, and the old wanting takes over.

              Cover me, says the land.

              In order, say the vines.

We tie ourselves up in beauty and the control of beauty all the time.

Wanting everything to have a clear edge.

The crumpled hood of a car is an ineffective tool,

as is a crushed median, and desire acting as a verb.

Cars stack up on the highway. A low thought reaches 

out of me, bounces back and lands,

I know not where. False start. 

The life of the mind is underwhelming and circular.

           There is a hole I never knew I had, says the land.

           Fill it, says the body.

A man walks into your room, takes off his socks, then leaves. You expected more, so you put the socks under your bed and wait around for him to come back.

A man walks into your room and doesn’t say anything. So you start the story, and you play all the characters. You tell him what blue eyes really mean. The man leaves.

You go to the man’s room and wait for him. The room tells you a story—a green light on the highway and a pile of dirty paisley shirts—but this room is not the same room, and this man is not the same man.

Outside the road is full of  men. They hold cups of bone and glass. Some cups are invisible. The men are silent. Which was yours?      

I once met a  woman who lived in a cardboard house. By the edge of a wastewater lake, at the  end of Para Street. Neighborhood  Street. She had no neighbors. I’d gone down to skip rocks, watch them plop, plop, slop under the murky surface. The lake was lined with plastic straw wrappers and discarded hard candies and  cigarette butts. That’s where I discovered the house. It was the size of a Tata car; it was the color of clay. It  had a greeting on the front door—Esho!  It had two eyes that peeked out through a crack.

“Come  in,” she said, spotting me.  

And so I did. 

Though I was  eleven, the old woman was shorter than me. Hunched over, like an origami crane.  Her stiff folds covered in white cloth. She was lined with the markings of an  aged tree. But her skin was clean, soft, sari unstained. She gave me a glass of water and a slice of chocolate cake. The water was from a stream, the sweetest I’d ever tasted. The cake, fluffy and rich. 

“Can  I live with you?” I asked her. Her lazy eye spotted me. 

“You can live here if you catch a fish from the river. If you can clean the rust off of a steel pot. If you can eat a paan.”

And then she shooed me home. 

I forgot about Para Street and went to school. And then the summer before university, I stopped by the river and watched a fish leap into the air. I made a detour on my way home, walked past apartment buildings. A paan seller stood with his cart in the  street and I bought one. It was bitter and sour and I spit it back out into the road. It stained my teeth. I arrived by the Hooverville, tiptoed around the wastewater lake. Esho! was still  there, but a little faded. 

The old woman greeted me with open arms. She hobbled more slowly this time. She gave me a glass of water and a slice of chocolate cake. 

“Did  you do what I told you to?” 

“No,” I answered guiltily. “I’ve seen many fish in the river. I tasted a paan. I forgot what else you told me.” The water was clean and filtered, but not cold. The icing on the cake was a little too solid. 

“If  you want to live with me, plaster a wall. Eat the burnt toast from the stove. Relieve yourself without a commode.”

And  I promised her I would. And then I left for university in America. And there I learned about streets like Para Street and urban planning and how to get the old woman out of her cardboard house. And when I came back to visit, I ran into the maze of Hooverville homes. Even though I tried to avoid the mud, the soles of my boots filled with grime. Mosquitos left red welts on my palms. Her cardboard house had been damaged by the rain. The roof had collapsed on one side. 

The  old woman fixed me my snack. Dirt caked the edge of her sari. She used a cane now. 

“Come  live with me,” I told her, in between small bites of my stale cake. But she only shook her head. I looked into my cup. The water was brackish and so I didn’t drink. 

“Did  you do what I told you to?”

I  stayed silent. 

“Find  a child on Para Street and make them  the same offer you’ve made me.” Hearing this, I looked up, caught her eye. Her gaze didn’t falter.

But  I was angry at the old woman for not taking my offer, for not accepting my help.

So I left. 

Back to America  where I found myself an American wife and we bought an American house and had children who were half-American. And who were all filled with the brackish water of the wastewater lake. 

It was many years later that I returned. This time, I trudged through. Waded  across the lake. The house stood only by its foundation. Inside, there was a  plate of moldy chocolate cake. A cup that was empty. The old woman was nowhere  to be found. I shivered because I was soaked.

I went back to America, to my house in a welcoming neighborhood with an asphalt driveway and two stories and crown molding and a water-filtering refrigerator. I dug through the cabinets and emptied them of everything until I found it. I placed the rusty pot under the sink and started to scrub.