There

Todd Heldt

She spoke of the fifty temples of Hampi
and the stream that dissected the desert.
Stacked-boulder monuments reposed
or scratched the belly of the sky.
She said the people were so full of God
that their skin bore ridges of bone,
but they were not hungry.
I couldn’t help myself, saw only horizons
of her hair, water the hue of her eyes,
the gods lodged like mountains in her body.
I could not touch her terrain,
or visit the place of her spirit.
But this much I know:
desert, stream, gourd waiting for rain.