Krishna Lewis
Release
It was not dust escaping to speak to us in ethereal shape, nor was it fine sand trilling
between our fingers to join her parents long ago buoyed forth on the river,
nor was it even the sludge of burnt and now-rancid ghee, as a cousin said it would be,
but rather it was coarse, little, gravity-stricken stones that appeared in our cupped palms
as we dipped into the sack to release our mother into the Ganges,
and in the end, it was the end, for our hands sprung up without weight, without anchor.
Krishna Lewis is happily the Fellows Program Director at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.