Branch

Instead of a polished stick,
give me a shaggy tree.
Boughs extend to branches to stems,
all raised to the sky.
Instead of clean paper,
give me a leaf of any color.
Its tenders veins stretch out, seek light.
Instead of a smooth pen,
give me a feather, to stroke
fronds aligned on a stem
a ghost battalion.
Instead of a lake, let me drift on a rolling river,
survey, its tributaries wandering off
like children from mother.
Pick one for me to glide down,
let it take me where it will.
When I use my eyes and feet
to explore city streets,
let the corner guide me
to a lane, sideblock, alley,
to listen to shifting sounds.
This is my meandering world -
branching arteries and veins,
feathering nerves, splayed toes,
upheld hands, fingers outstretched.

Sparrow

A sparrow alights on the window
where I lay, six hours old
in the infant ward
of Cincinnati General. 

I look at her through the glass.
Her head cocks.
She watches me -
my open mouth, blinking eyes. 

She flies off.
The light outside the window
is gold, white fluff floating.
Inside the light is white.  

A shadow falls over me -
the nurse’s face
her warm hands
lifts me, places me in 

a cart with clear walls.
White light follows me
into a room with a window.
She picks me up 

lays me
nearly small as a bird
in my mother’s arms.

Who I Really Am

A Post Job Poem

Forty years inside that office
nested me within Matryoshka dolls.
One day they all unscrewed, flew off.
"I'm free," I thought. I rolled my pea-sized self
splashed my four green feet in mud
left from thunderstorms that yesterday
I could only watch through glass.
Now, when patter turns to roar, it's time
for rain to trickle through my jungle hair
until it glistens like the leaves
of my companion trees.

Author’s Biography

Ujjvala Bagal Rahn’s Red Silk Sari (Red Silk Press, 2013) is her first collection of poems. Her work has most recently appeared in The Threepenny Review, Illuminations, The Future Fire, Möbius: The Journal of Social Justice and Bangalore Review, among other journals.   She is the owner of Red Silk Press, a micropress of science fiction, science, poetry, and memoir. She lives with her husband in Savannah, GA.