Ovi on Bullet Wood

by Kate Polak

for a Jodathi of the Yellamma Cult in the early colonial period

We’ve all been where She was: laughing
water and getting distracted
when young men’s sweated-beaded long backs
come riverward with the swagger

released of pride, and when I stayed,
watching too rapt their lithe bathing,
their devotions, the muddied bank
where their calves rippled,

I ignored the masked gate which I’d
called home until that morning, sighed
for my mother, and left no sign
to call back my past life.

Coming to Her ochre body,
carved ordered chaos that shot me
from profane to someone holy
my right foot passed threshold first.
​
When both feet knew without waiting
for remembering the sacred
steps, I danced the full moon naked
but for cowries at my neck.

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Kate Polak is an artist, writer, and teacher. Her work has recently appeared in DIAGRAM, Miracle Monocle, McSweeney’s, Drunk Monkeys, Moria, Inverted Syntax, and elsewhere. She lives in South Florida with her familiars and aspires to a swamp hermitage.