noteworthy
In each issue, the editors choose a writer they would like to bring
to the readers' attention.In this issue, Anuja Ghimire is highlighted.
Anuja Ghimire's poems are in a voice that says trust me: "once, an old woman fresh from a hospital stay fell on the floor / because her one check that bounced avalanched into overdrafts of auto-pays." It's a voice sure in where it takes us: "today humbles me on the D string / you’ve closed your big girl / teeth breaking in / to let gossamer notes ring." And it's a voice singular unto its self: "my mother eats stories and smiles / when she tells us about mangoes she picked in Janakpur." Let's listen.
crying at 10 dollars an hour
Play position, 2019
My children have grown like orchids in February
manager-- dry cleaners dreams deferred
A young woman says, "I want to speak English like you"
mangoes
Marvelous Monday, how may I help you?
in a bank inside a grocery chain, I hung on the tip of the counter like dew drops
before the crowd trickled in to cash FEMA checks, I, too, carried debris of Hurricane Katrina
Terrific Tuesday, how may I help you?
how I wanted to be my supervisor’s friend, tucked in the pressed uniform shirt in the twenty dollar pants
she hissed at my bird-like bones on the mop
how she branded my face with reprimands
but held the hands of the teenager with a silver anklet, prison ID, and a fifty-year-old husband
Wonderful Wednesday, how may I help you?
I read the bills and names in terrorists and no-fly lists as if poetry
watched my friend Jon tilt his head and search for the security thread in the crisp notes he held
Thunderous Thursday, how may I help you?
once, an old woman fresh from a hospital stay fell on the floor
because her one check that bounced avalanched into overdrafts of auto-pays
why doesn’t god listen when she prays?
Fabulous Friday, how may I help you?
and the interview man in the same brown suit came in every two weeks with a sad look
I, too, heard the voices in his head when he cashed in unemployment
Sensational Saturday, how may I help you?
supervisor never gave me a counter
I took too long to read each customer
gazed at the faces on the dollars, fives, tens, twenties….
and gathered the sun and the moon in the pennies, quarters, nickels and dimes
oh, the Milky Way inside someone else’s cash drawer
Super Sunday, how may --
I poked the ghost of my college diploma on the tiled floor with a broom
in August, I dropped my brass name tag, left the bank inside the store
Your arms make home for wings
when you lift the bow as thin as hope and
rest it on the lips of 1/8 violin
today humbles me on the D string
you’ve closed your big girl
teeth breaking in
to let gossamer notes ring
minuet one, without the slow dance
to forget where I have been
I hang on to your low twos
you hold the finished wood
and make the hollow sing
My children have grown like orchids in February
Spring comes, even if I am not ready
Fog clears just to another street lamp
Beside the wet half a squirrel
on the sidewalk, tall blades of grass
rain pours through me like a sieve
when I wake from my temple dream
I remember only praying to the land
god was in a pastel stratosphere
on the pagoda roof, rows of dove and crow
also poised for leaving
I held marigolds and reached for the bell
Now, my open, empty hands fall
manager-- dry cleaners dreams deferred
my first week, owner repeats in Urdu that he can tell a lizard’s gender
if he spots it on the ceiling for just a second
manager translates again in Hindi
he wants to tell you he’s a good judge of character
when each customer opens the door and brings in wind, manager smiles
as if his heroine changed her mind and ran
from the train station back to his buff biceps
his elbows on the front desk, eyes on one window
two cars parked like us
hundreds leaving like his Bollywood dreams
I think you resemble someone
manager comments
I know
in the back, I sort garments by color and starch
denim gets heavier in the afternoon
hangers turn steel
sometimes I take orders if manager wants to look at the sky from the sidewalk
if I give them lotion today, they will want one more dollar tomorrow
manager telephones owner
only two words in English that don’t reach the steam from way back anyway
but he knows two abuelas keep their own Vaseline in the ladies’ room
in Grand Prairie heat, his skin is also cracked
and he runs his hands through his wavy hair for grease
The young woman says, "I want to speak English like you"
she wants to hold my tanned words on the precipice of her tongue
like Seinfeld’s Babu and Simpson’s Apu
to unfurl them as a party trick
“How are you?”
but the cloak of her intonations slides again, again
she stands can’t-see-the-change-in-your-cheeks- meters away
flicks her chin-length hair
that wind on my cubicle, I am three, my head hits the wooden desk,
number 2 Nataraj pencil dots my white, ironed uniform sleeve
elbow smudges on my first alphabets:
the circular egg, police stick, monkey’s tail, and demon’s moustache क
that I learned to write dreaming
A,B,Cs that I woke up mumbling
her question’s lightning shrinks her, too, in a flash,
I see her bare on her mother’s lap
an “o” escapes from her pink lips when her mother says “aa”
I hear her mother still clap, clap, clap
as the baby sits up straight and stretches into the young woman
laughing alone in the office
near telephones that ring, ring, ring
the same in any language
my mother eats stories and smiles
when she tells us about mangoes she picked in Janakpur
a small bucket to fill small arms of her village girl days
my mother gives us a mango that has come in a bus
easiest to divide fairly into three, side seed side, sister brother me
we run to the house of forbidden mangoes and color TV
to watch Mowgli in Hindi
the woman brings maaldaha pre-sliced for only her two children
I watch juice on their elbows, Shera in the jungle
Mowgli high up on the tree, pulp on seed in between my neighbors’ teeth
before the credits roll, I swing from street to street
to claim sides, seed, skin, and all
the sun is yellow and ripe when I pull out a knife
and I do not know that my mother is watching me
Anuja Ghimire is from Kathmandu, Nepal and currently lives near Dallas with her husband and two daughters. Her chapbook Kathmandu is forthcoming from the Unsolicited Press. Most recently, her work found home in Glass: A journal of poetry, Finished Creatures: London, Prakhsya Review: Bangladesh, and Crack the Spine. She is a two times Best of the Net and one time Pushcart nominee. She writes poetry and flash fiction. She works as a senior publisher in an online learning company.
