Puja

Puja= a Hindu ritual that involves giving offerings to God in the form of coconuts, bananas, money, etc. that involves the burning of camphor and incense sticks among other things.

Tendrils of coconut fiber flew up from the flames

Of camphor, slithering around in air like snakes

Looking for prey to land on; it settled its midnight
Body onto the boat-shaped petal of canary-yellow

Flowers that let the tendrils slide into them like

Drops of water; the flower was tenderly lifted up,

Rising to the heavens, rising to adorn God on his

Golden throne, God stuck on glazed paper, in swathes

Of industrial ink; it lay like a mouse in a corner

Of a room- in the corner of the portrait, looking

At God with its periphery vision, it lay still and

Silent. Nobody must know. Nobody must know.

Incense and marigold fought to display their most

Appreciated assets of nauseatingly sweet, cloying

Smells that swung in tandem with the smokes of

Camphor, like porpoises swimming up from their

Fiery coral, coconut husk, like a murder of crows

Flapping away from their perch on an autumn branch,

And incense sticks that simmered up silvery clouds;

All of which settled on the skin, skirting the rivulets

And ponds of sweat like parched grazing animals,

The hordes of which cascaded into the watery

Ocean of saliva, mixing in and sweetening it–

Juicy coconut flesh-fish teasing the coral-taste bud

And sweet banana-eels making them smile.

The golden clapper struck against the chipped

Bronze edges, fragments of it that had been lost

In older houses with different people, its vibrations

Playing with the smokey glossary of animals and

The tangy-sweet air; and amidst this, right then

And there, the world lulled itself to a dying-charcoal sleep.