by Phyllis Green
The Anatomy of a Tamarind Tree
All that he owned was a tamarind tree,
even the land where the house stood was not his.
So, what else is yours? the young wife asked coiling
her finger into his matted hair. His drunken eyes
looked from her to the pods on the tree, her skin
the texture of seeds. The river, he said
as the vanjaram fish splashed in the silver of his eyes.
She laughed, but there is no river for miles around.
Here it is, he held her wrist. The nerve twisted
in sediments of the memory of her people. The river ran
below the skin of cantaloupe, in the musculature of soil
where the roots of the tamarind tree spread.
She saw it in the spine of her man, the fine branching
of blue veins in the neck as he arched towards her.
______________
Vanjaram – Tamil name for Spanish Mackerel
Uma Gowrishankar is a writer and artist from Chennai, South India. Her poems have appeared in online and print journals that include Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2020, Poetry at Sangam, City: A Journal Of South Asian Literature, Qarrtsiluni, Vayavya, Hibiscus: Poems that Heal and Empower, Shimmer Spring, Buddhist Poetry Review, Silver Birch Press, The Well-Earned, Curio Poetry. Her full-length collection of poetry Birthing History was published by Leaky Boot Press.
Phyllis Green, from the United States of America, is an author, playwright, and artist. Her art can be found in Gulf Stream, Cinematic Codes Review, Superpresent, Dipity, LitBop, Talking River, I 70 Review and other journals.