A poem by Mayuri (Brook Bhagat), from her book Only Flying
I was dancing with Rachael, who died twelve years ago in June. It was a soft, soft room with velvet orange-red carpet, and we were going crazy, laughing and whooping faster and faster, eyes-locked mirrors winging to the rockabilly, perfect loud. We kicked off our flips to feel the shag. There was no window in there, no time. I thought I could leave and come back anytime.
It was afternoon when I closed the red door on the music. I was standing on an upstairs landing of the kind of place that’s crowded with houseplants, the kind of place where you feel safe to play. From the long windows, sunshine painted hardwood stairs, five feet wide and broad, stretching down to the first floor without a railing. I bounded down: bam bam bam bam bam!
When I got to the bottom, I remembered my flips. I turned around, but on the middle stair sat a monk in orange robes with a shaved head. He was speaking to a dozen people in pastels, crowding around cross-legged or crouched, hanging on the stairs with their cloth bags and water bottles, straining to hear his voice.
At the bottom was the Master, in white, amused and aloof, enjoying himself. He was sitting in a white armchair with his ankle on his knee, and his beard was dark gray, like the early days. We sat together like friends. “I need to get my shoes,” I said.
He smiled. “You will have to wait,” he said. “You will have to wait and listen.”
From her poetry collection, Only Flying
Only Flying
by Brook Bhagat (Mayuri) – brook-bhagat.com
Unsolicited Press, 2021
98 pages
Paperback, eBook and Kindle
ISBN-10: 1950730832
ISBN-13: 978-1950730834
ASIN: B09DF2WKBY
Available from unsolicitedpress.com and amazon *
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