Crackle of Moth Wings Burning

Plantations in Darjeeling,
a hotel called Mona Lisa,

barefoot during a storm,
we fell to liquid wax

working no way out.
The fog and rooster’s call

rolled the candle down
a tea-stained mountain’s back.

We watched the homes take shape
of Uma’s constellation

the light in dancing trees,
where Sandip smoked a ring,

the crack within his knee,
that dotara horse-head string.

He played the walls,
he played us, too, the cyclone

and its gusty drum
like ripples in a tin

or faith in Uma’s cry.

—

Sophia Terazawa is the author of I AM NOT A WAR (Essay Press, 2016). Her poetry has been recently published in Mud City Journal, Yalobusha Review, and The James Franco Review. For now, she lives in Dallas, Texas.