David Starkey
V3:E5 May 2001

RISHIKESH

Summer twilight,
       when fruit bats cross
the darkening ocher sky like flocks
of swans,
        when the long thin leaves
of the Ashoka trees tremble
like widows' fingers
                   in the warm breeze,
which carries the smoke of cooking fires,
the distant sound of bicycle bells
and scooter horns.
                 I watch her
gaze out the open window,
smoothing her lavender sari,
                           remembering,
as she has done for twenty years,
the Child of God her parents forbade her
to marry, and I think,

In all of South Asia,
there is no sadder woman than my wife.

Date of Birth:	1962
Location:	Santa Barbara, California
Email:	starkey_d@hotmail.com
Website:	http://www.angelfire.com/il/kinglog/editor.html
Publications:	In Posse Review, Adirondack Review, (this) poetry site, Caffeine Destiny, Poetrybay, Salt River Review, Wilmington Blues, three candles, etc.
Books:	Poetry Writing: Theme and Variations, Fear of Everything
Awards:	Winner of Palanquin Press's Spring 2000 chapbook contest
Other:	Teaches in the writing program at the University of California-Santa Barbara

- March 2002 - Dear Anna Sonnets in a Land of Prose Calling The Minnows Oxford Blue Ficus Aurea Playing it Back what we will plant unto the breech some more Ars Poetica Elegy For My Mother Standing Under a Street Lamp on the Corner of Brice Court Escaping the terrible fish Sadie song for stephanie it will always be the season of famine somewhere Adieu - John Turner's Best Of - the disgruntled women's chorus sings accompaniment on the beta male blues How to Build an Impossible Staircase Trying to Raise the Dead How to Kiss The Grassfires of the Resistance Rishikesh