Don’t search for Rama

in the piles of stones where

 

people erect altars. Don’t

sound bells or tithe

 

flowers, even if they’re jasmine

buds. Don’t

 

scramble up the minaret

to shout verses

 

or to make a sacrifice

that’s not your head.

 

Says Kabir to both headed

and headless,

 

your very breath

is the Name.

 

∞

Rajiv Mohabir is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021, Finalist for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry), and translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara (1916) (Kaya Press 2019) which received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Award and the 2020 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His hybrid memoir Antiman (Restless Books 2021, Finalist for the PEN Open Book Award, and the 2022 Publishing Triangle Randy Shilts Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir), received the 2019 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing.