Sati Mookherjee

Inversions: Doha ↔ Sortha

1.      

so many years I looked to the west   but

                now I look east and south. Too much noise here  – all’s too bright –

you cannot hear yourself. In the village   there’s

                                      a flow in things but you have to know to   catch it right .      

If you can’t see what’s here zoom out or go   up           

                 to the moon and look down.  Look at the way  rivers start:

streams marry, braid to sea in inverse of  trees:  

our seeds dropped root and our branches grew so  far apart.

2.  
                  

As a girl I was like a mountain goat    climbing tre-

                         -ble trunked trees, leap-frogging stream, scree and land   fall.

                            Mothered there named Mother here, which only    goes to say

                       I have two deśes or I have none at   all.

                      I have heard it said that the immigrant    has two souls.

                                      I walk the lake nights far too cold for rain.                 

                               Frozen ground. Suddenly glittering there:   Karachi                       

from the oval window of the lifting plane.

3.      

Poets once, we tilled a rivered uni-  verse

          Why should I believe in something I don’t remember?

you ask and I turn the question inside-  out     

          Do you recall the life you lived inside your mother?

To look and to see are separate things, signs

            on the horizon  drift by read, unread.  I’m coding

new lines: Our usual calendars can’t hold

dependencies, can’t hold  everything real   that’s floating 

Poet and lyricist Sati Mookherjee is the author of the poetry collections Eye (Ravenna Press, 2022) and Ways of Being(Albiso Award, MoonPath Press, 2023). A third collection, DEŚ, is forthcoming in 2025 (Pulley Press). Her collaborations with contemporary classical composers have been performed or recorded by ensemble and solo musicians. Her work appears in literary journals and anthologies, most recently Salamander, Laurel Review and Sugar House Review. She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and is the recipient of an Artist Trust/ Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship Award.