Rishi Janakiraman

Bodies in phototaxis

we ate light in fistfuls, our bodies bloated & hearts spinning
like prayer wheels. I didn’t know what to say—you, smiling at me
in broken english, trying to tell me this recipe for light. you’ll cradle
me in a litany of words: I swallow. I scrub this bloodline with vinegar
& you spoonfeed me Tamil syllables, noodle-curled, the way I was
christened மழலை as to mean young, boy, baby-blue & sky-soft
like this city whittled me into a fetus. you’d tell me how I was
bleached by it all. my date-pruned fingers outstretched to sterile
hospital light, holding onto this slant, snapping its straight rays
in half. & now, light's clinging to your smile lines. all these
wrinkles splintering you into the sins you gave me. our tongues are
still overfed, bloated like the Sun, eating all the languages we can
get our hands on. I’d say how in every one, my lips pressed together,
bent themselves into submission as to say Amma, and you’d remind
me how to translate it all, turn son into faggot. here: let me feed you,
and blow before you eat—it just might burn your tongue. let me
tell you all the ways grammar can get stuck in your gums, syllables
slip like eels, conjugations crack open like wet bivalves, hungry
for the Sun. let’s hope that when the light submerges our bodies we’ll
still be breathing. let’s hope you don’t retch these graphemes so I don’t
have to lap them up like a stray dog. let me tell you: language doesn’t
taste too good when everything's in translation. feel the two letters of
my name ரிஷி stretch inside you, the crowbar-curl of each vowel
ballooning out. I know you’ll forget this, but when you do, promise me
you'll weave this light into a net, catching only what refuses to drown.