Neemakharam by Rajiv Mohabir

My tender love, my father,
feet still warm from circling
the sacred fire, poured

burnt engine oil
into a gopher tortoise’s hole,
the earth drank black.

He planted an orange tree
meters away. Its fruit was night,
so he drowned it in blue

crystals meant to fertilize
but its leaves browned. Instead
of blessing it, he cursed

the son his body made—
May you never bear fruit;
May you be thrown out, trampled by men—

I am all salt and salt-less.
What can oil-soaked earth bear? God
the father sang me a lullaby,

Neemakharam, neemakharam
I’ve given you the kingdom;
you’ve given me a snake.

My tender love, give me
the dove of your chest and I will
crush it in my fist.

Rajiv Mohabir is the author of The Cowherd’s Son (Tupelo Press 2017, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Prize) and The Taxidermist’s Cut (Four Way Books 2016, winner of the Four Way Books Intro to Poetry Prize, Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry in 2017). In 2015 he was a winner of the AWP Intro Journals Award. He received his MFA in Poetry and Translation from at Queens College, CUNY and his PhD in English from the University of Hawai`i. Currently he is an Assistant Professor of poetry at Auburn University. Read more about him at www.rajivmohabir.com