Varuna

Our home is a jagged mouth,

streaming out pleas to the dead

We are misshapen teeth

uprooting ourselves

But we could have spent our time

burying strangers instead

We would've settled in

and found out our names

But calm your heart

The dark is still the dark

We'd told our sons to wait their turns,

like eager months lined up in herds

to age our skin and stretch us out.

They never get tired of stretching us out.

We read the braille with our bare feet

It would not teach us how to see,

But we finally realized ourselves.

Varuna is counting the notches and nicks in our planks.

Do we deserve the grave,

or the table you set for the liars

and unloving husbands and wives?

They hadn't seen themselves

They couldn't have known.

But face that fact,

Every branch you cut grows back.

And we're growing into the thought

that we're cast like iron,

forced into these shapes.