Frodo Soup

The Deliverer by  Tishani Doshi OUR LADY OF THE LIGHT CONVENT, KERALA The sister here is telling my mother How she came to collect children Because they were crippled or dark or girls.  Found naked in the streets, Covered in garbage, stuffed in bags, Abandoned at their doorstep.  One of them was dug up by a dog, Thinking the head barely poking above the ground Was bone or wood, something to chew.  This is the one my mother will bring. * * *  MILWAUKEE AIRPORT, USA  The parents wait at the gates. They are American so they know about ceremony And tradition, about doing things right.  They haven't seen or touched her yet. Don't know of her fetish for plucking hair off hands, Or how her mother tried to bury her.  But they are crying. We couldn't stop crying, my mother said, Feeling the strangeness of her empty arms.  * * * This girl grows up on video tapes, Sees how she's passed from woman  To woman. She returns to twiligh

The Lammas Hireling by Ian Duhig (2000) After the fair, I’d still a light heart and a heavy purse, he struck so cheap. And cattle doted on him: in his time mine only dropped heifers, fat as cream. Yields doubled. I grew fond of company that knew when to shut up. Then one night,   disturbed from dreams of my dear late wife, I hunted down her torn voice to his pale form. Stock-still in the light from the dark lantern, stark-naked but for one bloody boot of fox-trap, I knew him a warlock, a cow with leather horns. To go into the hare gets you muckle sorrow,   the wisdom runs, muckle care. I levelled and blew the small hour through his heart. The moon came out. By its yellow witness I saw him fur over like a stone mossing. His lovely head thinned. His top lip gathered. His eyes rose like bread. I carried him   in a sack that grew lighter at every step and dropped him from a bridge. There was no splash. Now my herd’s elf-shot. I don’t dream but spend my nights casting ball from half-c