Sunrise

The midnight morning

Was dark

But my ruby heart

Was aflame

We journeyed up the hill

Or maybe the Himalayas

To Kunjapuri Temple

The road

Had somehow managed

To tangle itself

Into a ball of yarn

Over the years

As we drove

We couldn’t tell

Where we took off

Nor where we’d land

In the backseat

I was stacked carefully

On top of six others

Like slices of sticky deli meat

But we knew the sunrise

Would be worth

The jumbled journey

Who said

Not to eat before

My stomach’s knots

Thanked the stranger

The one girl

Who didn’t listen

Was desperately fumbling

To undo hers

By looking at the horizon

Which was at a slant

Parallel to our upward climb

Someone spat

Don’t close your eyes

But she did it anyway

And then my mother’s voice

Echoed in my mind

Hand her a bag

So I grabbed the only

Satchel around

Her twine yoga sack

From the ashram

I emptied her anatomy books

And in the darkness

She had no idea

That I had handed her

Her own souvenir

I mean

I wasn’t going to hand her mine

That would be too kind

And her morning banana

Burst forth once more

No longer atop a tree

Safe inside a peel

But instead

From a yogi’s mouth

In a yellowish

Pink pile

Like the color

Of a kid’s party favor bag

From the dollar store

Someone else bubbled

Can you stop please?

And the girl bouldered

Out the back trunk door

And we tried to hide our ears

From the sounds

Of her banana battle

I tried to breathe in

The dusty road air

Hoping the the stale dirt

Would settle my stomach

Several lurches later

We piled back in

Puke bag in tow

And she was still too sick

To realize

It was her own

And up we climbed

Praying that everything stayed inside

We reached the top

And tumbled out

And the temple greeted us

By bell and bliss

Over each ledge

Was a view the stole our breath

From the furthest recess of our lungs

Maroon morning mountains dancing

Under the disco ball sun

Our eyes started to change color

The beauty of the world’s good morning

Made each iris a palette

That found the peace

The answer

We each sought

In the sky

And blended that message

With our own story

We found each of our faces

Forever reflected in the clouds

Body and heaven one

The sunrise was rich

Sapphires kissed by tiger eyes

Garnets

And amber

And we were queens and kings

And I was happy to gift it

As an offering

To the back and forth

Like an old friend below

When we parted ways

With tumeric kisses

On our foreheads

Mixed with bits of rice

We walked down the stone slab steps

To the car

That surprisingly smelt of samosas

Not sick

And our ill friend

Who had made a speedy recovery

Thanks to the sun’s colorful kiss

Now realized

That her barf bag was still atop the temple

She almost abandoned it

But remembered

A lucky necklace she had left in the pocket

And so we waited once again

Happy that this time

We could unpeel our salami stacked selves by choice

And without the sound of boke in the background

-M.C.