Pratik : Valantine Day Special: PRATIK'S LA ISSUE Editorial Poem, "Un-stitching a California Poem" by Yuyutsu Sharma

EDITORIAL

YUYUTSU SHARMA

Un-stitching a California Poem

For days and weeks

I wondered what she meant

as she departed with my red necktie

I‘d bought a week before at Macy’s.

“I can’t believe they have

you here all the way from the Himalayas

to teach poetry at the University,”

she began in her Southern accent,

staggering on her high heels

in a dimly-lit bar

that Jeff had asked me to rush to

from the Fisherman’s Wharf where I had stood

for hours watching the famed coastline,

a clam Chowder bread bowl in my hands.

Her red Marlana one shoulder

Ruffles Bodycon dress bellowing

bleats of slithering sea lions,

the stories of her little town on the Northern California shore

that her father had to leave

for scandalously shooting a bear

who came every evening

to lick the fruits in her lush garden.

In the cab amidst the swirl of merry gossip

and anecdotes of mighty mad men as we drove

to an Albanian place only a few blocks down

the Valencia Street lured by Jeff’s assertion

that he had his photograph

with one of the Jazz celebrities hanging on the wall,

she teased me from the back seat,

“You need to prove it, Mister, that you’re a poet,”

and later in the waiting lounge

timidly touching my red tie,

“You dress too elegantly

to be a poet from Tibet or wherever you say you are from.

Let us see if you can write

a poem for our birthday girl tonight.”

As evening progressed,

I learnt more of the birthday group,

of the tall boyish birthday girl,

‘kind, compassionate, of Ohio origins’

her loaded on makeup

and gaudy dress at first glace

suggesting a transvestite,

one more time she hurled the rebuke –

“So, Yoyo, what would it take for you

to write a poem for my friend.”

And to my nervous assurance,

‘Sure, I’m working on it, I’ll write one,

one for you and one for your friend,”

she cheered out loud, nearly knocking off

the lone candle

on a tiny square of cheese cake that

we spooned out and licked in honor

of a hi-hygiene California ritual.

Later as I was on my way

to the rest room, she approached me again,

“I love your tie,

can you please give it to me,”

I looked into her green eyes

and saw wild animals prowling there

and meekly handed it over to her.

“You are so sweet,” she said,

“But I have stitches in my vagina,

sorry, I can’t make love to you tonight.”

She left with my blood red tie,

I kept my promise and wrote the poem.

Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu Sharma is a world renowned Himalayan poet and translator. He has published ten poetry collections including, The Second Buddha Walk, A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, Nepal Trilogy, Space Cake, Amsterdam and Annapurna Poems. Three books of his poetry, Poemes de l’ Himalayas (L’Harmattan, Paris), Poemas de Los Himalayas (Cosmopoeticia, Cordoba, Spain) and Jezero Fewa & Konj (Sodobnost International) have appeared in French, Spanish and Slovenian respectively. In addition, Eternal Snow: A Worldwide Anthology of One Hundred Twenty-Five Poetic Intersections with Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu RD Sharma appeared recently. Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world and conducts Creative Writing workshops at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home.

Currently, Yuyutsu Sharma edits, Pratik: A Quarterly Magazine of Contemporary Writing.

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