Saddle Up, Gopikaas

 

All the thousands of gopika cowgirls gather round––trick riders, sharpshooters, huntresses––and souls rose from their dreams. They hide a chapter in the lining of Nirmala’s coat. She was chosen as the runner to carry it long afternoons through molecules of buildings and years fading like dim marquees throbbing alive at dusk with those that cry in the cracks of sidewalks because they hear nothing but the wires of lamentation in their own living ribs. Like tamales and nitro, she enters the underground complex covered in dials beneath the monastery. She punches a button. A bright red panel opens iridescent. Lotus blossom ether gardens part. A faded sign points to the serenity chamber of her own tenderness. Shed of everything else, she takes her last nectar pill. The treetops and streams of Pullahari bend toward the dwelling place of the dakinis. She realizes this pile of bones is hers.

 

 

[Published in The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter: Expanded Edition.

© 2016 by Jim Cohn.]