My Mother’s Copy Of The Godfather: Three Poems by Gunakkshi Garg

hands sweaty, i passed the book around the bus:
the smut in The Godfather was giggles in middle school,
paper older than our eyes,
profanity softer than our lies:
the blood, real.

i watched,
his eyes flickered. do you think i’m cool,
the way i let you have this,
this description of Sonny Corleone’s thighs?
i re-read the book, and his three dots
danced to meaning, he asked me if i believed in God:
I told him i was considering it, but he said he was an atheist.
atheism sounded boring, like he did.
he asked me about star signs and manifestations and i thought of my bully,
the girl he lost his mind over;
of her, he said-
it seems dating me made her gay.
he moved away.

page 27 of the book still flips easier when i visit it again. everyone left seventh grade.
i never understood the Corleones, or
why we both gained so much weight
those two years when the world was locked up, but i tried to–
with my mother’s copy
of the Godfather, my god through my fingers
dancing to meaning.

my bones wanted to be seen, bare. alive. i wanted to make sense.
not to him, not after a while. he texted me two years later:
for the first time, i saw two people die.
i thought of the cross-hatched bus seat embossed on my knuckles,
neck sore from turning around to talk,
to watch- do you think i’m cool?
i wanted to ask him if he believed in god now. instead,
I told him car accidents happen and i was here if he wanted to talk.
i wasn’t.

with my fingers now strangers to the patterns they worshipped,
after that death, i was his god.
now we don’t talk. my mother’s copy of the Godfather knows us,
paper older than my eyes,
profanity softer than my lies,
the blood, mine.

there’s a ten second, thirteen-year-old youtube video,
eight hundred and thirty-two views: dragonfly mating dance.
i’m a ten-second phenomenon too, love won’t meet
your gaze for longer.
i knew they were dancing when i first saw it in real life,
waltzing over a greening pool with orange fish bubbling
light orange tunes to a mossy metronome.
i know love when i see it,
especially when i can’t hold it.
i have a shaky video too, one distracted by the bleeding blue
of the sky swallowing the tilted roofs, the other
dragonflies drawing circles around their watery shrine.
love, a sacrifice, at the pyre of
a fleeting sentence, a skipping stone.
they danced all three days that i saw them, disappearing
into a blind noon at the first knock of lunch plates on the table.
the hunger, the love, and the food–
over the green pond, waits an overgrown tomorrow.
on a sunny laundry line, on a ‘happy birthday” billboard,
moonlight, nightfall, an ice cream truck in traffic,
there is an embrace that i recognise,
a dance. i don’t hear the music, and
i can’t hold the tune: but love will know me when i see it.

i found God in a street corner,
by the supermart
and God was tiny and white
like a bloodless heart.
loving, not living.
I asked God what here on Earth needed God
and God said-
"I came to see
how you remember me.
You keep me here,
with the monsters,"
fingers against my ribcage.
"Yes, so you can protect us."
"That or teach the monsters how to?"
I didn't know what to say,
so I frowned at the force against
my chest and thought
that if God wasn't God
I would call the police.
"Why am I like this?" I asked
and God looked at me and spoke,
"There was no other way,"
so i laughed because God really knew:
but there was no laugh in God's eyes;
like a child chided i cleared the
silence to ask- "why are you like this? this small, i mean."
now there was a laugh in God's eyes and
so I knew I hadn't said the wrong thing,
"You speak like smallness is insignificance- as if your heart,"
deeper into my chest, God had nails,
"isn't a fist big,
and your fist isn't a mouth big,
and your mouth isn't as big as your hunger,
and your hunger isn't cosmic-
like it doesn't demand stars
before it is satiated with stones."
I was on the verge of tears
because I was sure God had ripped a hole through the skin of my chest,
"I promised I would make you beg my forgiveness," I said,
scarcely remembering the many years
I was taught how to speak to God.
"The only thing I can beg of you is mercy."
God had near reached my heart
through the cracks
of my ribcage and the tiny fist coiled itself around
my only claim to being alive,
as I whispered-
"Are you here to kill me?"
God paid no heed to me,
and stared at my chest.
I looked down to find my own hand
in my ribs, around my heart-
of course, that's why the fist fit.
"Mercy," God whispered. "Have mercy."
my breath slowed and pained
when I pleaded,
"can you forgive me?"
God was pulling at my hand,
"Have you asked that of yourself?"
I know I had and all that had echoed as
an answer was a "no" but
God already knew that.
"Your people make me wish I had someone to pray to,"
God said before the alley went dark
and my bloody fist went back
to the right place-
clenched, heart-huge by my side.
About the Poet:
Gunakkshi is a 17-year-old girl from Hyderabad, pursuing higher education in English Literature and Political Science. She is an avid reader, and her prose and poetry have been published in multiple online journals and magazines.