Anita Patel (b. 1959)
SELECTED POEMS
Soul
You have not earned the right
to use this word,
a white professor said to the
Persian girl
as he ran his eye over her
poem. And filled with shame
(at her own presumption)
she scratched out four letters
that she had not earned
the right to use.
The word disappeared
along with her mother’s laugh,
the sizzle of turmeric in a pan,
cool floors, lemon trees, the heat of
summer sand, a honey cake placed
tenderly into her mouth,
her heart dipping and lifting
like a wayward kite,
scoldings, kisses, anger, fright…
brushed away like messy crumbs
from a rich man’s table…
by Anita Patel
from A Common Garment (2019)
