Midnight pools catch the brilliant lanterns

carried by women in procession.

Deep into sleep

I follow them home.

The streets malinger beneath the tight-lipped sky.

Each stone draws like a weapon.

Each cooking fire is a funeral.

The stomach suffers immensely / It suffers from lack.

It’s midwinter and soon time for Losar / time also to cast aside our failures and regrets / and propitiate the deities for the New Year.

खिच्नोस् खिच्नोस् / कसरी बसम्? यसरी? / कि यसरी?

Broken stonework, sharp edges. I feel them / cutting my cheeks and chest. Maybe / someone took my legs?

Let’s sit beneath this sky
strung with nine hundred thousand lights
and drink bowls of this old chyāng

You – my bastard child, you have learnt to speak, after years

I have created –

a country for you where your fractured self

lives by multiple names