Vismai Rao

LOSING WORDS

All night it rained in my mouth.
The neuron for cloud had burst.

My sinuses flooded. Tongue, wet
& passive—Someone tried

to summon sunshine but it was too
late—By midnight the deluge was at

my knees, where scars from a gentle kneeling
at the beach mistook the water for wave,

waited for the sea
to recede—If sand could hold moisture,

I would have dreamed desert.
In the soles of my feet reside

memories of soil: parched riverbed,
mowed lawn, mounds marking

a patchwork of rice-fields. I witnessed
as each rose to the occasion—

by morning I’m left
an island of trees. Beyond my reach

a word for feathers
of water caught in a breeze—