A widow, desolate, floated down a bored
river, knocked on the door of an
upside-down turtle and asked,
how did my husband’s soul escape its prison?

The turtle gazed through wrinkled
eyes, and said, after 50, I don’t answer
decrepit questions en route to

dust. It’s all “maya” anyway.

Salvage your wounds instead.
Rub them bright with red chilies
till they bleed, exuberantly,
like an unhinged raft
careening towards a precipice
then plummeting into a
frothy expansive
howl

Shoba Narayan is a bilingual poet. She writes in Tamil and English. She has published five memoirs and won a James Beard award and Pulitzer Fellowship. She hosts the Bird Podcast, makes films, sings Indian music. She divides time between India and the United States.