By Gavin Barrett

The house she built for her father

The roof has fallen in.
The snakes that molted outside
have taken shelter under
the steel trunk where my uncle’s bones
have come to rest.

What madness this family made
and unmade.
Rust-red Mangalore roof tile shards
camouflage themselves
against terracotta bedroom floor,

the termite nests, the laterite dust.
The trails confuse themselves.
The balcão seat faces away from the mango tree
and the grille on the window
curlicues itself into elaborate amens.

Swahili dust motes rise in
the light of chimney lamp and coconut
thatch dark. Afrika has come home.
The hiss on the woodpile is the brother
you loved and feared.

The house is a block of whitewash, lime
slaked over stone grudges.
The palms rustle at night,
warning of the arrow-headed tree snake
that falls like a loosed bolt of green.

So many exiles, so many roads, and seas.
From here the ships cannot be seen.
So many storms, brothers lost at sea.
My mother’s schoolbooks are also buried
in that prison for the dead,
the steamer trunk

that survives them all, their words,
their dust, their memories, the ants.

Miracle

I had god but a priest cured me.
The leaving wracked me like desperate prayer.
Until my heart attacked me, I was a lover
fingertips you wouldn’t believe,
tongue softer than air.

Hearts are holes held by muscle,
brains bone-bound mush.
Faith is the thing that flew
out my mouth like a robin
and sings in my hair like a thrush.

Gavin Barrett’s poetry has been published in Ranjit Hoskote’s anthology of 14 contemporary Indian poets, Reasons for Belonging (Viking Penguin, India); the journal of Pen India; The Folio; The Independent; The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad, and Poeisis—the journal of the Bombay Poetry Circle. He was a Poetry Circle member from its very first meeting. His debut poetry collection is titled Understan (Mawenzi House, 2020)

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