Why Sita Is Chosen
Amongst peacocks and jacaranda she is humble, calls everything leaf, bird, sky. The forest left its branches in her chest, mobbed her dreams with its noise, its fisted heat. She is always in the wrong season, wakes to a mouth full of pine needles, winter grass, imagines the cold hush of stars, spiked and luminescent, as halo, as proof. She is wary of fire, backing away from stove, candle, match. In mirrors, she sees only a mouth yielding, practices bending to the wind.