Dhumavati

I am told my weight in bird carcasses,
hollow-boned, as gilded deities.

My mother wants me to eat with purpose,
and I find myself perturbed
by the weight of her suggestion.

I tell her of Dhumavati, the old hag goddess,
who, upon finding herself hungry,
attempted to eat her husband.
Through this case study, I try to present hunger as
a mere catalyst –
You eat when you eat, if you must eat, then so you eat.

My mother scolds me for inventing
strange goddesses to suit my agendas.

But I do know hunger’s purpose,
its anatomy, which is as primordial as
the wild impulse of scavengers –
flesh flies and old-world vultures,
and corvids with their celestial intelligence.

This is the new age, and I am a new age girl.
I am as limber as an egret,
keeping near my water source.
I am sedentary
from carrying the exhaustion of my past life.
On new moon nights, I bask in the fridge’s
light in the cold awakening of a.m.,
tasting the bitter air of stale food.
I endure gravity’s pull despite the airiness of my body.

But my mother wants me to eat with purpose.

Maybe on the next night of maiden moon,
I will join Dhumavati in her hungry wandering.
A winnowing basket in hand,
we will go knocking on doors,
asking other women to lend us their
appetite’s purpose.

*Dhumavati, a Hindu goddess, symbolizes hunger, thirst, need, and poverty. She is often depicted as an old, ugly woman riding a crow and is sometimes seen as a form of the goddess Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva.