Married to an Indian Woman
by Matt Salleh

Red bindis cling quietly
to the sterile
apartment-square mirror
in the bathroom next
to our toothbrushes.

Curry stains linger
under my nails
sometimes for days.

I own a veshti, jippa and two woks.

These are things
I could not
have dreamed of
as a boy
eating Spam biscuits and grits
growing up in a double wide
and dreamin of huntin deer
and squirrels.

These days the Malaysian sky hangs heavy
not unlike the humid summer rains
where katydids
and cicadas sing beneath kudzu leaves
dug deep into red Piedmont clay.

And there will always, always
be bindis and veshtis
and deer hunters and squirrels
as long as I can dream.

And sometimes,
only sometimes
even those things
I could not dream
are even better.