Bindi Up

A poem considered, imagined, and executed in Sunnyside, Queens, NY 11104

BINDI UP

Brocade sari once the color of spring plenty
Was the green in a rainbow of twenty

Wrapped tight over the increased girth of age
The filigree frayed by carried kids now grown

Embroider’d swans fray’d down growing younger
Fluffy fowls lined up on fields of green ochre

The garish saris of her youth are worn
The young flesh that they hung on now hangs

Life drawn down by time and care and worry
Pulled towards the earth she sprung from so far away

Still the spring sees the once precious sari
Wrapped and tucked with clinical precision

Trailing a cart of grandkids’ food or clothes
Around seven blocks of western Queens

He thinks, as he watches, only the bindi
Buoys young poise now sari’d together

Doesn’t long for the days he unwrapp’d her
Just loves the life they’ve found here together

BINDI UP

Draft 1

Brocade sari once the color of spring leaves
That was once one of a set of twenty

Wrapped tight over the increased girth of age
The filigree frayed by carried kids, now grown

Embroidered swans grown backwards to frayed down
Fluffy fowls lined up on fields of fall green

The garish saris of her youth are worn
The young flesh that they hung on now hangs

Life drawn down by time and care and worry
Pulled towards the earth she sprung from so far away

Still the spring sees the once precious sari
Wrapped and tucked with clinical precision

Trailing a cart of grandkids’ food or clothes
Around a few blocks of western Queens

Wicked gravity condensed around her
Twice the force of the adjoining time there

He thinks it is only the bindi that
She wears that holds her up in the shower