Disappearing in Bihar

Mosquitoes persist. The rooster

never learns three o’clock from five.

Everything we think will stop happening

keeps happening. We weigh ourselves

in the bathroom, converting kilograms

into how much rice and dal and dysentery

have slimed our hips. Ten pounds lost,

and it’s still not time to go home yet.

We’ve made a habit of cutting off our braids

by flashlight, leaving toothbrushes

where dragonflies land on them,

unpacking our jeans only to fold

them up again, to let them be taken

by mold. When we emerge in the hot

morning, when the monastery is all silence,

we only touch our bare necks

and imagine our hair falling in the dirt.

Village children run after us

holding out hands, saying sister, saying

money because it’s the only English

they know. We start to look for each

other’s shoes at the doorway

to find one another. When we forget

our sandals on the roof or lose them

on trains, our bare feet leave

no sign that we are anywhere.