Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay

narcissus

narcissus, the hunter, the numbness

son of river, god, reflection of the water

time dies to the ground, comes back

from the bulb, let them eat, breadlines

but with a price, medicine or narcotic,

poison, protection—Camus' prophetic

plague, Bach’s sonata, Nero’s fiddle—

shame, thirst mirror, love in the trumpet-

shaped corona, grows a flower in its

face, in its greed, gold and white, 

public enemy turned martyr, hunger,

doctored, death bed of seeds, of youth, 

extinct or good fortune, a false spring, 

no end in sight, gathering in the name

of self-salvation, single central leafless

hollow flower stem, late leader of

numbers, faceless, under ground,

living dead, hermaphroditic, bipolar,

Chinese New Year lucky daffodil

with no angel’s tears or soft hands, 

and not enough soap to wipe clean,

narcissus poeticus, waiting it out,

poet’s narcissus, to sit and watch

cactus

a cactus becomes a home 
for many things like birds, 
a body a host, burrowing

i am glad i have no address;
you do not need a reason
to not come

a cactus can survive harsh
time, live forever, aware of
territory, spines as sewing needles

do not touch me, my summer
colored skin, like a blip,
your hands are flames

a cactus does not need.
death by water, like a camel 
pricks as leaves, uneaten

there is no enemy, your history 
books won’t help or hold you
people are dying but can’t sit still

el nopal can be eaten, 
cereus peruvianus blooms 
at night bred by bats

a peyote is illegal
euphorbia can make you go blind
monstros is mutation, a deformity

there was always distance,
an excuse not to call, collect,
do not touch me, deliver me

instead touch every thing you can
touch yourselves, or your brains,
slowly pick out the spikes 

tomato

did you know
to grow another tomato
plant, you could root a 
piece of one in soil?
the piece is called a sucker
and it looks just like its mother—

our tomato plant was a weed 

growing in the sidewalk cracks 
of the cracker barrel where we stayed
where the menu of a meat and three,
i did not think, had tomato and
thus been thrown out of the windows

everyone is a garden bought at the store
$19.99 and the promise of bloom
or bought already half-grown

we are all living the same life

like dirty water, injected with disease
spread like rumor, swollen by stillness
tomatoes are self-pollinating—
unlike people who do not know alone
amidst the garden
trying to make friends with the weeds
you have never planted a thing in your life.

until now:
juice it, red all over my fingers, bloody touch of seed and failure,
wiping them off on my shirt, still warm from the sun

home is heirloom, but 
i never liked tomatoes until i got to italy 
something about slow
beating us at our own game
our slim season, ethylene gas
turn green-plucked into money

at what cost?
distance turns space clean
cherry-picked, sundried, 
mortgage lifter 

La Tomatina the waste in our faces

heaviness
nightshade poison 
free jungle or
borrowed time

without us, the tomatoes
would still be growing
in the cracks, tall as the sun,
bursting with fruit