Musa acuminata

The home where I grew up
   was carpeted, bookshelved,
      soundtracked by Baroque.

Imagine my surprise
   in college
      watching a woman onstage

as she screamed, ripped
   off her shirt, smashed
      cinder blocks. Then

she got dressed, went out   
   dancing with us, touched me
      with those sledgehammer hands.

I’d learned how
   some fruits are born
      from flower necklaces,

clusters of white and golden
   curls on emerald beads
      beneath wine-red lips.

As soon as green
   bananas start to blush
      high above, the parent plants

begin to die. My girlfriend and I
   took the bus to a condo
      by the beach, walked

a mile to pick up beer.
   Before we got drunk, collapsed
      the sofa bed, I ran topless

to the waves, cupped water
   over my breasts, invoking
      every damn goddess I could name.

.

When We Reached the Amphitheater, We Were Already Singing

On the bus
from Bangalore to Nrityagram,
we passed

an ocean of mustard flowers
& their blue-green
dreams of leaves.

They sang
in a language I didn’t know,
waving as we passed.

Let me make many mistakes
so I can learn much.

We got lost
on the walk from the bus stop
to the festival,

drifted under
a banyan tree, heard chickens
cooing in someone’s

front yard. Unlike
in the city, our strangeness
wasn’t strange.

Lead me down many wrong turns
so I can find the secret places.

Admission was free
& no one minded when we entered
through the back door.

.

Kathryn Good-Schiff is a librarian and writer. Her work has appeared in California Quarterly, Meat for Tea, The Montague Reporter, Naugatuck River Review, PANK, and elsewhere. She lives with her wife and their animals in western Massachusetts.