Dear visitors to my grave
I am a shrine

I am a shrine
of my choreographed body
prayers still echo within
my cold temple, dancing
inside carved pillars in
resonance
of an altar
I am made of carved shadows that hovered over our gurgling pondI still stand in places that were
tart with stories that made children gurgleI look into the rain. Into the same rain that twitched like
sand falling into the stem of an hourglass; I am often a hummingbird invoking flush songsI am also
tight lipped, sealed like the sachet of sandalwood
my maa saved inside the perfect geometryof her handknitted kilims.
Late in this graveyard evening I dance to the petrichor scents
as fireflies press their light against the rainbow
of my crumpled scarves.
On moonlight smeared evenings, the sky lights up the color of five spice I am then aglow like a
taboo woman
my prickly cactus veins
breaking the ashen night into a rash.
I measure time, with my fading fingers
the walls of my coffin
damp with a lingering
jasmine scent.

…
Kashiana Singh(http://www.kashianasingh.com/) calls herself a work practitioner and embodies the essence of her TEDx talk – Work as Worship into her everyday. She proudly serves as a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News. Her newest full-length collection, Woman by the Door was released with Apprentice House Press in 2022. Kashiana lives in North Carolina and carries her various geopolitical homes within her poetry.