A Map of Tenderness

Rupa Shenoy-Thadani

Say I start this poem without a prayer. Say 
I stand before you with my hands cupped & not
a bowl, a blessing, a plea to spare. Say 
do you receive every shard, every petal, every stutter 
sight unseen? Say 
what good is a third-eye that can’t hold? 

Azúcar 
Azahar 
Azucena 
Azalea 

You come back and you go 

Son al Son 

Hips swaying

y la sinrazón 

Say I inhabit this city and a dozen others before it. Say 
my days held in custody of the intricate rhythm of the 
city. Of another 
distant city where my childhood waits, on another 
shore 
staring back, at all the nothings across the 
Mediterranean: the fiery orange between the blues, 
seagulls, & another Africa. All the nothings 
I cannot hold. 

Say I were a shooting star. Say 

we unhinged ourselves from every etcetera 

screeching across the sky into combustion. 

Could you hold me then? 

¡Ojalá! 

Ajedrez 

Almohada 

Nada Nada Nada

you want to hear:  

Jhaliyaa 

loud and clear

Jhaliyaa 

Morena 

Ambar 

Arena 

Sometimes Guillén, Sometimes Kabir 

Sometimes Machado, Lorca & Bulleya 

 Jhaliyaa 

Say let your curious tongue walk the jhaliyaa, call her 

out to combust off the page 

¡Ojalá! 

Say I opened the palms of my hands. Say there was 

nothing to hold. Say there was nothing that held me. 

All the nothings under my fingernails, I say, there was 

nothing to hold me back. 

Jhaliyaa 

Say did you feel that fistful of sunlight rejoice between 

my second and fifth ribs? 

Catedral de Sal 

Jhaliyaa 

Nada Nada Nada 

Say dirt in my fingernails. Say 

you come back and you go. Say 

between being & becoming

Nada Nada