Amit Majmudar

Poem with Ginger in it
June 25, 2017 Majmudar Amit

Poem with Ginger in it

 

This rough hooked lump, this botched
antler of a dwarf moose,
this half-melted candelabrum

when skinned and cut
is clean and bright—
sun yellow, in cross section.

Wok full of broccoli,
forkful of forest fire:
Radicle incendiary, light me up.

Strip the paint off my throat
so that for two days, swallowing
my spit will feel like strep.

I love the pharyngeal singe.
I love the medicinal pain
that switches on a siren in my brain

and makes me pay attention
to my food.
Pepper is tepid,

cinnamon impotent.
Galangal, begone,
I’m on a binge—

it’s the heat in my chai,
the kick in my Moscow Mule,
my game-changer,

game-winner,
my aspirin, my acid, my fire in winter,
my pinch of Punjab, my ginger.

Amit Majmudar‘s newly published collection of essays is Black Avatar and Other Essays (Acre Books, 2023). Twin A: A Memoir (Slant Books, 2023) is his forthcoming memoir, in prose and verse, about his son’s congenital heart disease. The first volume of his Mahabharata trilogy, The Book of Vows, is forthcoming in India (Penguin India, 2023), as well as a book for younger readers, The Later Adventures of Hanuman (Puffin India, 2023).