i must, however, write SARU POTTURI
these keys, those keys, press into the hardened flesh of my fingers, rough from metal string and aching from nails bitten right down to the skin bird-like nubs deformed like babies set in baskets down the stream. but here’s a eulogy, as mama cries and pa pretends to grieve: you were meant for something greater, karna, moses of the seas. and karma’s got her vice-like grip upon my toes: my kafka on the shore; and all my lines and squiggles might be just that: glorified remnants of worlds that i’m no longer privy to. i prithee, let me birth you, half-formed baby splitting my skull; i’m not your home. i’m not your home, you overgrown child, like a canopy growing in me, rumbling my intestines to make room. and this, and this is why they sent their basket case down the stream: for fear and knowledge that if not you would never leave. my fingers are itching to cast you out; i’m witch as can be, stirring at cauldron and stewing in my resentment. these keys, those keys nothing’s enough for you, nothing’s good enough, nothing’s good. perhaps it is i who will not let you go i who keeps you in: for fear and knowledge that when sent out to the world, you will return unrecognizable or perhaps not at all. that’s what it means to be a parent, to know the kind of hell-scape you’re bringing that ball of skin and bone and brain into. but if i give you wings, will you mold into icarus? my fingers twitch at the thought, ever so slightly, stuttering upon the keys, and making a sound most unpianoesque. it’s
agave review • 57
