Mathew Serback

Practicing Yoga in My Bathroom Mirror

There’s an old woman with golden skin

and if you look deep enough

into her old woman eyes

you will find an aged soul,

bronzed as a statue of a little girl. She doesn’t desire

anything except that her husband be freed

from the destroyer of all existence; Vishnu

comes to cover him. Her husband

stays wrapped tightly in death,

embedded in blood that is the pollen

for the locust.

In the distance the people of her village

gather to raise hands toward heaven,

dance in the shadow of explosions.

The old woman isn’t old anymore;

she wears a red dress, the color of sunburn,

and allows the waves to take her out to sea,

like tears being shed into the sink,

all down the drain.