Middle House Review
Anuja Ghimire "goodbye gourds"
goodbye gourds
in a borrowed book from the British Council Library
I once read about great men
that Tolstoy dictated as his wife wrote him into the world
if my daughters sleep I can type desires and prayers
after four months, green is going out
like light switch leaf after leaf in garden gourd
some afternoons children melt
and I cannot smile
eighteen blossoms were never yellow
my brother and I exchange headlines in camera phones
far from Kathmandu
monsoon floods swallow villages
the virus waits in epicenters
if I water the roots without hope, will okra linger in August?
we are awake in this dream
daughters, you can be anything you want
look, there aren’t any clouds
but this poem is about the rain
Bio: Nepal-born Anuja Ghimire (Twitter @GhimireAnuja) writes poetry, flash fiction and creative nonfiction. She is the author of poetry chapbook Kathmandu (Unsolicited Press, 2020) and two poetry books in Nepali. She’s a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. By day, she works as a senior publisher in an online learning company. She reads poetry for Up the Staircase Quarterly. She enjoys teaching poetry to children in summer camps. Her work found home in Glass: A journal of poetry, Orbis: London, EcoTheo Review, UCity Review, and Crack the Spine, among others. She lives near Dallas, Texas with her husband and two children.