THE FLOOD
Mother Nature was angry.
She unleashed the Flood Of Woes: cloudbursts of black water, streams of melted glaciers. Snow-capped mountains became killer rivers, uprooting forests, slaughtering herds of barking deer, packs of mules. Villages and good sons vanished.
Highways, bridges, buildings, bodies disappeared in the valleys leading to the hallowed temples of Char Dham, the four abodes of Shiva in the northern state of Uttarakhand. 300,000 seekers on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage were trapped. Some walked out without a scratch through incessant rains, past undeterred destruction, their faith stronger than nature’s power. 6,000 bodies decayed waiting for rescue teams to arrive. The Indian Air Force helicoptered corpses back to their home states; the Army evacuated the wounded. It was liberation for all — a win-win apocryphal moksha bestowed by the God of Creation & Destruction.
READ – MORE
Requiem for a Contender
When Dad was dying the nurses bound his hands in yards of Ace bandages so he couldn’t pull out the life supports. The Buckeye Bomber, a Golden Gloves heavyweight champion, who fought the pro-circuit, Cleveland, Chicago Detroit, Kansas City, tough-guy towns— once on the same fight card as Joe Lewis— was down for the count. The boxers’ hands were crossed, the right defending his face, the left, ready to punch.
But the final round was over.
I park my suitcase under a window and roll up the sleeves of my wool cardigan. The “Physicians Only” parking lot below Dad’s room is filled with top-of-the-line luxury cars. Shining 1979 Lincolns, Caddys, Mercedes, and Jaguars reflect the day’s last light of Fort Lauderdale’s coast. I count the Cadillacs and watch Dad’s nurse. Focusing on her helps me see the man I once feared. She finagles IV tubes and senses Dad’s internal landscape. A blue hospital gown covers my father’s body.
“Hello, Daddy,” I say.
“We gave him something to help him rest. He knows you’re here,” the nurse says.
I inch my way across the room and kiss my Dad’s bald head, charred from another round of radiation. A lone hair sticks to my lips. His body smells like a potion my grandmother concocted when our tomcat was dying. Graw mixed castor oil, iodine, and some fungus she scraped off a tree into a pulp, then plastered on the cat’s wounds. Tom lived.
READ – MORE
TO BE HERE IS IMMENSE
Parabola, Spring 2024
Annapurna, a pious Brahmin, tucks a sari blouse into a white cotton petticoat and knots the drawstring so vehemently that two inches disappear from my waist. Annu chants The Thousand Names of the Divine Mother while folding crisp silk into seven perfect pleats that rustle under her touch. She cinches every inch and fastens the sari to my body with safety pins of many sizes dangling from her eighteen-carat gold chain. My sweet attendant summons Maha Lakshmi Devi, the Goddess of wealth, fortune, love, and beauty, and petitions The Bestower of Boons on my behalf. “When you come to the Goddess—don’t come empty-handed,” Annapurna prays.
If ever I imagined my wedding dress—-which I never did—this wasn’t it. I am draped in fuchsia and gold, spun from the finest silk and woven with threads of twenty-four carat gold from Banaras, a city as old as time, a sari made for wives of Moguls, then offered to my guru, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi, Amma, whose name means mother, and purchased by me. The Goddesses arises. Annu glues a plastic ruby Bindi between my eyes, anoints my throat and widow’s peak with red Kumkum, and cascades a mala of fresh-water pearls over my breasts. I am transformed into a creature I never thought I would be: a beautiful bride in my mother’s wedding dress.
READ – To Be Here Is Immense
SLEEPING DOGS
BioStories, Spring 2024 
My husband tells the story of the sleeping dog over a thousand cups of chai, across hectares of land, on stalled express trains, and into the heart of India. He sees grace in the story. I see the future. It all begins with Shiva.
The filthy mongrel is asleep. Not a flea moves, disrupting his dreams of chapatis and lentils fried in ghee. His scarred ears flop on the cool concrete and shut out the din of the train station. Burlap sacks of mustard seeds shield his mangy hind from dusty feet, toppling bundles, and thrashing sticks. The strayhas claimed a safe hideout for the night.
My husband sprints to the ticket window, rupees in hand, ready to pay for our one-way, second-class, sleeper berths to Tiruvannamalai and the holy mountain of Lord Shiva, The Supreme God of Creation and Destruction. He does not see the dog or hear me scream.
TOODIE
The Manifest-Station, May 29, 2022
My father’s mistress was dying of vaginal cancer and my mother went to see her. I can imagine how disarming Mom was when she entered the hospital room of her rival. I’m sure she stopped to check her make-up under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway, and dabbed Ooh La Pink lipstick over a smile she’d rehearsed in the car’s rear-view mirror. She would have pulled up her girdle and sucked in her stomach before entering the sterile room with a vase of American Beauty roses from our garden.
Mom would have posed the bouquet on a table with the largest blooms facing the bed and paused to admire the flowers. With the same gentle hands she would have touched the shoulder of her rival’s once voluptuous body, now flaccid, rank and shrouded in blankets the color of her parchment skin. My mother probably held Liz in her arms while she cried and begged forgiveness.
HUSBAND-IN-A-BAG
Faith Hope & Fiction, August 2022
When the demand to understand your death consumes me, I take out Husband-in-a-Bag. The bag is in a box I bought at The Container Store and keep on the top shelf of my office closet.
On sleepless nights I stand on a chair, bring down the box, and lay out your valuables on my desk.
When the demand to understand your death consumes me, I take out Husband-in-a-Bag. The bag is in a box I bought at The Container Store and keep on the top shelf of my office closet. On sleepless nights I stand on a chair, bring down the box, and lay out your valuables on my desk.
Like a pilgrim on the road, you took only what was needed for your journey, a cross-country trip following our guru, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi, Amma The Hugging Saint, on her eleven-city, U. S. tour. These are the things you carried:
SHIVAS TEARS
A mongoose scurried along the mossy rock wall, darted under a pile of wood and dashed in front of my feet in search of tasty vermin. Its beady eyes glared up at me as if to say, “Entrance not for everybody.”
The lumberyard stocked cremation woods heisted by timber smugglers from endangered forests, carried by porters, hauled by lorry drivers, and sold on the black market with bribes paid at every junction. Woods for royals were there; rare sandalwood and caster, woods for the common man—cork, bamboo, sal, sugar cane and mango—sold in the thieves’ market along with stock for paupers gleaned from the river carried on the backs of silent women dried in the sun with patties of dung and traded in the village for a coin.
Kindlings were there too: twigs, leaves, bark-stripped branches, bundled by mother’s little helpers at the river, a trip to the river for a kiss. Death was an underground economy that deforested Mother India. The cost of cremation was nonnegotiable; five-hundred kilos a corpse, six hundred of you wanting big flames for the fire of moksha, a celebration of the impermanent, imperishable, indestructible, immortal nature of the souls’ journey. The bigger the flame, the faster the burn, the greater the devotion. All Is Shiva.
PISSED
Persimmon Tree, Summer 2022
I moved the box of your ashes from the coat closet in the hall to the file cabinet in the garage today and peed my pants. It was bad Feng Shui seeing the box every time I opened the door. I tried covering you with scarves and hats, but even in death your vibration permeates our home. The mailman delivered you in a box marked Cremated Remains Priority Mail. He gently extended a clipboard for me to sign, wondering which way this widow was going to blow. “I’ll be OK,” I said. The cat ran and hid under the bed and wouldn’t come out for a week.
When friends ask how I’m doing I say, “Raw at a new level of grief.” I omit the part about peeing my pants while carrying grocery bags up the stairs. I’m mad all the time now. Your death unleashed a rage that surpasses all tantrums to date. Furies flew from my heart when the bathroom light blew out. I don’t know how to fix a leaky faucet or my bladder, and it’s all your fault. I’m lost in this body, in the house, in this new life. No wonder I’m pissed. You died and I hate you for making me get old.
I wasn’t old last year, but now why bother? I’ll just piss my pants and cry even harder than I did yesterday. I could buy diapers, but instead I’ve altered my wardrobe. Those size eight European jeans you loved have been replaced by old-lady clothes purchased at Goodwill. No more Lucy yoga pants, the ones that made my gams look sexy. I no longer rock those Lululemon skorts, now folded in a pile in the back of our closet, the “I’ll get back to you” clothes. Nope, I’m a frumpy vision in black nylon stretch pants, size large or extra-large depending on the day. I never wear the sexy underwear you bought me anymore. I’m mortified at the thought of peeing those pretty white lace briefs you loved.
Bladder issues are common in women my age, but after years of yoga practice and tantric sex I’m appalled at my lack of control. I will not be discussing this issue with my physician because adding another medication is untenable. Hell if I’m going to tell her I stopped taking two antidepressants. Perhaps it’s the withdrawal from reuptake inhibitors that has affected my sphincter muscle.
I’ve learned where all the bathrooms are on my daily route. The bank tellers don’t like it when I ask if I can use the facilities, but they’ve been kind to me since your death. You were such a good customer. Walks in the park or by the river are out of the question. It’s me and the homeless people frantically searching for a friendly loo.
The cosmic joke’s on me, peeing my way through my widowhood. Lost husband, lost control, dignity, hope that I will ever be happy again. Humility through incontinence is my new spiritual practice. I’m living with uncertainty and wet undies.