22/30

Just mad about saffron

Huit, banco. A natural: you've done in

their agent at the game

he chose. As his mind spins

the lie he will offer his betters,

his fat fingers tear the extra seam

in the lining of his dinner jacket,

find the prize. A tiny phial of glass,

Ray-Ban amber, rubber-corked.

The agent rests it gently

on the croupier's pallet, deals it

down the path of iron for your approval.

In the hand it reminds you

of the blood pipette the RN drew--

not anemic, just overworked

and listless. It weighs no more

than the glass itself. Withdraw

the stopper and count your winnings:

two dozen long red styles, like silk

page-markers plucked 

from twenty-four perfect Bibles.

But the scent is the tell, even

uncooked. Faraway heaps

of hay and straw, and the hundred

summer suns that dried them.

The vast gold flower

in Vikruti-Lakshmi's Easter bonnet.

You can smell the care

with which the youngest daughter tiptoed

from bloom to bloom, gathered threads

in the long and wide plantation, danced

past the orphaned landmines

with perfect routine.