by Claire Stringer
Perched atop a heap of dirt and crunchy chip bag ghosts, with my body configured into a squat built to spew, I turn my watery eyes to the sleepy Rajasthani sky and I think about Prince Andrei and the dubious yellow lumps of sugar that are being born again out of my mouth and I hear your wild, scratchy laugh jouncing around the stars. Your body lies closer to here than it does to California and perhaps, in the receding void of this horizon hole some slice of black lingers over some remains of your goofy grin and maybe you can see me gagging, poised above my liquid hot inner gurglings —— nothing will be a new pose for you. I wipe my mouth withthe back of my hand and wonder why I never lose weight from food poisoning in developing countries and why you’ll never get morning sickness or any sickness you’ll never feel your intestines roil or your spit grow cold my shirt has lived through three weeks of curry, sweat, and musty soap — a rankness that you’ll never smell. You’ll never affectionately call me a fucking idiot again. The chai at this roadside bar tastes like vomit and I would prefer your salty Pakistani chicken broth and Lipton tea any day hey, how long is the walk to Karachi? Dysentery is part of the experience. I hope that you weren’t sitting next to an angry man who ate a whole head of cabbage while yelling at his wife to make him a cheese sandwich, and that there weren’t any babies on board. Fog-encased mountains thick with Ficus forests that absorbed us into their mystery and muddy bumbling adventures — those were our worlds. Your mountain, I’m sure, is lovely and glamorous (are there white cheeked bulbuls and cheer pheasants? Or, at least, hot tubs abrim with champagne?) but my mental image does not expand beyond the scale of that thumbnail photo and an aerial-view map (an aptly miniature size for you, buddy) your plane, too, must have been that of regular-sized proportions, but sometimes objects appear quite tiny from great distances.
Claire Stringer doesn’t change the station when Coldplay comes on the radio.
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