Baba’s illness

burns in the back of his diabetic knees. Burns his
laughter. It strokes his hand at night, wakes him to say
that I will be the one to break his fingers. So he paces
the house, listening for his toes. Fatigue overpowers the
azaan. He sits on the prayer mat, recites, Terror cannot
be heard through telephone lines. Calmly, he rocks
back and forth. His clairvoyance, that genius in his
eyes, it says I am why the loitering men in front of
Bangla Bazaar avoid him. Illness whispers to him: any
body can be smashed between a semi- and a freight-
truck. It shows him the ways flames could lick up my
sides and crawl through my nostrils. Illness could find
my eyes, too—
it wraps a wick around my waist and waits.