The Latex Smokehouse
The monsoon does not drop;
It weight-safes the corrugated roof
until the tin groans under the fat gray water.
Before the tapping begins,
the dealer’s rusted spring scale
hangs from a jackfruit branch,
waiting for our sweat.
Inside the shed,
the stench of acetic acid hits the throat,
sour and thick enough
to curdle the morning milk.
My knuckles are white
on the ribbed iron rollers,
pressing the raw latex
into sheets of rubber skin.
The tree’s milk grays,
resembling dead flesh
before the fire takes it.
We hang them on split bamboo poles
in the smokehouse
where the wet coconut husks smolder
in the pit below.
The amber smoke
turns the air into a blind lung.
Everything here darkens—
the soot on the rafters,
the skin on my forearms,
the heavy mud outside
where the frogs choke on rain.
The rubber sheets hang
like skins waiting for a body,
dripping oil onto the packed dirt floor.
A snake slides through
the rubber roots outside,
unbothered by the smoke
or the downpour.
His ledger is already open.
He will cheat us on the weight.
But the rain keeps falling,
erasing the tracks on the path.
A single amber drop of latex
hardens on the scales.
Granite Bathhouse
Red hibiscus oil leaves a dark ring
on the stone,
a heavy scent of chemparathi
sticking to the steam.
I stand on the wet granite slab,
alone,
where the afternoon heat creeps
through the high iron grate.
The wet cotton mundu
clings to my hip like a second skin,
revealing the silver tracks
where the fat broke open years ago.
They call it a woman’s bloom,
but it looks like lightning
frozen under the flesh of my thigh.
My sister says a body
must be hidden from the lane,
locked behind three bolts
and a traditional name.
But here,
the water from the brass bucket
doesn’t care about the lane;
it breaks over my collarbone,
cold and un-prayed.
My belly is soft
as rice soaked overnight,
carrying years of fish curry and rice.
I touch the scar on my rib,
small and white as a jasmine bud,
and realize this skin belongs only
to the marrow inside it.
The well water tastes slightly
of iron and deep earth.
It washes away the veranda dust
and kitchen whispers.
I step out into the blinding afternoon sun.
Salt air dries the water
along my ribs.
The mango tree’s shade
waits behind me.
