Eunice de Souza

Keep cats
if you want to learn to cope with
the otherness of lovers.
...

In every Catholic home there's a picture
of Christ holding his bleeding heart
in his hand.
I used to think, ugh.
...

Poems have order, sanity
aesthetic distance from debris.
...

Father X. D'Souza
Father of the year.
Here he is top left
the one smiling.
By the Grace of God he says
we've had seven children
(in seven years).
We're One Big Happy Family
God Always Provides
India will Suffer for
her Wicked Ways
(these Hindu buggers got no ethics)

Pillar of the Church
says the parish priest
Lovely Catholic Family
says Mother Superior

the pillar's wife
says nothing.
...

Keep cats
if you want to learn to cope with
the otherness of lovers.
Otherness is not always neglect -
Cats return to their litter trays
when they need to.
Don't cuss out of the window
at their enemies.
That stare of perpetual surprise
in those great green eyes
will teach you
to die alone.
...

Poems have order, sanity
aesthetic distance from debris.
All I've learnt from pain
I always knew,
but could not do.
...

Luminous new leaf
May the sun rise gently
on your unfurling

in the courtyard always linger

the smell of earth after rain

the stone of these steps
stay cool and old

gods in the niches
old brass on the wall

never the shrill cry of kites
...

In every Catholic home there's a picture
of Christ holding his bleeding heart
in his hand.
I used to think, ugh.

the only person with whom
I have not exchanged confidences
is my hairdresser.

Some recommend stern standards,
others say float along.
He says, take it as it comes,
meaning, of course, as he hands it out.

I wish I could be a
Wise Woman
smiling endlessly, vacuously
like a plastic flower,
saying Child, learn from me.

It's time to perform an act of charity
to myself,
bequeath the heart, like a
spare kidney -
preferably to an enemy.
...

She dreamt of descending
curving staircases
ivory fan aflutter
of children in sailor suits
and organza dresses
till the dream rotted her innards
but no one knew:
innards weren't permitted
in her time.
Shaking her graying ringlets:
"My girl, I can't even
go to Church you know
I unsettle the priests
so completely. Only yesterday
that handsome Fr Hans was saying,
‘Miss Louise, I feel an arrow
through my heart.'
But no one will believe me
if I tell them. It's always
Been the same. They'll say,
‘Yes Louisa, we know, professors
loved you in your youth,
judges in your prime.'"
...

Well, you can't say
they didn't try.
Mamas never mentioned menses.
A nun screamed: You vulgar girl
don't say brassieres
say bracelets.
She pinned paper sleeves
onto our sleeveless dresses.
The preacher thundered:
Never go with a man alone
Never alone
and even if you're engaged
only passionless kisses.

At sixteen, Phoebe asked me:
Can't it happen when you're in a dance hall
I mean, you know what,
getting preggers and all that, when
you're dancing?
I, sixteen, assured her
you could.
...

My cousin Elena
is to be married
The formalities
have been completed:
her family history examined
for T.B. and madness
her father declared solvent
her eyes examined for squints
her teeth for cavities
her stools for the possible
non-Brahmin worm.
She's not quite tall enough
and not quite full enough
(children will take care of that)
Her complexion it was decided
would compensate, being just about
the right shade
of rightness
to do justice to
Francisco X. Noronha Prabhu
good son of Mother Church.
...

Meeting poets I am disconcerted sometimes
by the colour of their socks
the suspicion of a wig
the wasp in the voice
and an air, sometimes, of dankness.
Best to meet in poems:
cool speckled shells
in which one hears
a sad but distant sea.
...

My love says
for god's sake
don't write poems
which heave and pant
and resound to the music
of our thighs
etc.
Just keep at what you are:
a sour old puss in verse
and leave the rest to me.
...

As a matter of fact I do.
I contemplate, with a certain
grim satisfaction,
dynamic men who sell better butter.
Sometimes I down a Coke
implacably at the Taj.
This morning I terrorized
(successfully)
the bank manager.
I look striking in red and black
and a necklace of skulls.
...

This poem is for you.
It's a reprieve.
It says
nothing in your little black heart
can frighten me,
I've looked too long
into my own.
Thank you for the gift
of your uncertainties.
...

It's time to find a place
to be silent with each other.
I have prattled endlessly
in staff-rooms, corridors, restaurants.
When you're not around
I carry on conversations in my head.
Even this poem
has forty-eight words too many.
...

My Portuguese-bred colleague
picked up a clay shivalingam
one day and said:
Is this an ashtray?
No, said the salesman,
This is our god.
...