Poetry: Two Poems by Rajiv Mohabir

Hari ne apnā āp chipāyā

Green leaves in their kernel coats 
have not yet imagined their cells 
divided enough to brush the sky.  
They can’t even dream of what sky is.

Already in my lungs, my last exhale:  
a harsingar twist of white star- 
flowers begin night perfume.  
Do you know the harsingar? What else

hides in disguise? My love it’s raining— 
This song inside me, a seed, and you, 
reader, are there too, and you 
will germinate into bough and—

know the grain-husk’s masquerade 
of shit and cum—you will blossom.

tīrath meñ to sab pānī hai

Consider the marigold, beloved 
of the elephant-headed god, 
strung into a garland I wore  
to my wedding. Its gold,   

scentless. A bee has no reason  
to stick itself to saffron.
I’m not telling you anything 
the dawn and dusk haven’t  

plucked on the lyre of epochs.  
Named for Mary’s gold: the king  
of heaven was gifted myrrh.  
Its name, senseless.   

At the holy places, Kabir says 
there is only water. Can a river 
be anything but itself  
emptying into a greater body? 

But I make this sensual.  
What is my body if not its own  
river, if not its own marigold.

About Rajiv Mohabir

Rajiv Mohabir is the author of three collections of poetry including Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021) which was awarded the Eric Hoffer Medal Provacateur, longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Books Award. He also authored the memoir Antiman (Restless Books 2021) which was a finalist for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, 2021 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography, and received the Forward Indies for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction. As a translator, his version of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (Kaya 2019) won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets in 2020. He teaches in the MFA program at Emerson College and lives in the Boston area.