After the funeral I unfurl
the rug my father brought with him
from India in 1951 –
a dairy farm appears in the middle, facing north,
a pony to the east,
shaggy brown, not bay
not copper, a color
that means he’s not there, never was, but here’s
the red corn crib, like Rheinhold’s
barn, patchwork quilt
painted on, orange mill, yellow house,
white roof,
green fields, corn
or tangled Sharad grapes, a Gulmohar tree
draped in fiery leaves,
strewn petals of maroon and pink
bower vines where my infant daughter sits
firmly planted among blooms of Shalimar Bagh,
one hand on a Moghul arch,
blue as a Wisconsin silo.
Rasma Haidri lives on the Norwegian arctic seacoast. She is the author of a poetry collection, As If Anything Can Happen (Kelsay Books, 2017), and several textbooks. Her poems are widely anthologized and have appeared in journals, including Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Sycamore Review, I-70 Review and Muzzle Magazine.
Copyright 2018, Rasma Haidri