after Vidyā
by James Thomas Stevens
Detail of photograph by Danielle Shandiin Emerson
On hot cypress slats
in the steam-darked onsen, your foot.
Toes splayed beside an
aluminum intercom, when
the tinny recording of a temple bell
sounds to remind us
of the quarter hour remaining.
Your arm against my thigh.
And I think of a Sanskrit poem
of a hill-tribe girl, exhausted against
her lover in the cucumber garden. Where
her bare foot jostles
a shell necklace on the fence,
scaring off the jackals.
And I am reminded that - for you,
there are always jackals. The chacales
of culture, of a mother’s expectation.
James Thomas Stevens – Aronhió:ta’s (Akwesasne Mohawk) was born in Niagara Falls, New York. He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts, Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and Brown University’s graduate C.W. program. Stevens has authored eight books of poetry, including, Combing the Snakes from His Hair, Mohawk/Samoa: Transmigrations, A Bridge Dead in the Water, The Mutual Life, Bulle/Chimere, DisOrient, and The Golden Book, (SplitLevel Texts). He is a 2000 Whiting Award recipient and Full Professor in IAIA’s undergraduate Creative Writing Program. He lives in Cañoncito, New Mexico.