What if my heart is the creepy uncle’s yawning zipper?

What if my heart is a Pentecostal babbling a river of tongues?

What if my heart is the cross-eyed Jesus bought at the Poteet flea market?

What if my heart is El Paso, Texas, in bed with the corpse of Ciudad Juárez?

What if my heart is unhinged from the weight of its lice-ridden wings?

What then for an encore, oh my soul, when you have blessed me a hundredfold?

Mrs. Gandhi

When Gandhi took his vow of celibacy, did he consult first with Mrs. Gandhi? Or simply take his path gradually and silently? So she would not protest. Peacefully or violently.

Wise it might’ve been to not seek dialogue with her. His work was worry enough. Mrs. Gandhi attributed to this his gradual nocturne apathy.

Complain? He went about his own tasks selflessly. How could she take offense? How could she blame? A pain as private and perfect as a river stone. She consigned grief to a sandalwood chest alongside doubts.

Maybe the abandonment was abrupt. Overnight. A sudden insult to her age. A small rage lingering that made her chastise herself as vain. Or did she simply bow and go, so to speak, with the Ganges?

Did Gandhi’s kids complain daddy was away—again!—on his campaigns? Did sons resent father and father sons? Did wife wish she were again the far-away wife? She knew too well how sometimes it is lonelier with company than with solitude.

When Gandhi took his vow of celibacy, were temptations too many, and so he declared, This drama is too time consuming. An itch he wished to remove before the scratch. He reasoned the body was to be abandoned eventually, so taught the Hindus. Why not walk away now, like the cicada leaving behind its shell?

Did Mrs. Gandhi understand and throw her love life in the pyre too? Or did she suspect a rival? Or simply follow her husband’s lead with spinning?

Does one forget passion? Did she look at herself in the mirror and put away her needs? What could Mrs. Gandhi do when complaint was petty, endurance piety? Take up poetry?

I wonder what Mrs. Gandhi thought when her husband came home and said, I think it for the best if I had my own bedroom now. Please don’t take it personally.

Cause and effect. Effect and cause. And did Mrs. Gandhi give it another thought because she was after all Mrs. Gandhi, or did she not mention the slight?

Surely, she thought something when alone, when she was lying down in the dark cool of her room. Surely there must’ve been some resentment gossamer slender. Some sense of her days slipping beyond reach. I am too young to be old, Mrs. Gandhi may have thought. She may have claimed this even aloud to herself or to her husband.