Dhaka’s Daughters
in dhaka
village women
chant at sundown
shrilling ice
voodoo voices
brew in three-parts
golden shawls
send new daughters
to foreign work
brown dust boys
tread train tracks
and howl proud
green daughters
clutch small pouches
emptied each monday
bare-skin boys
kick cans in tubs
salty latrines
metal clashes
like bronze cookpans
echoing dirty rhymes
dhaka’s daughters
warm rice at office
in softened pairs
hindu ladies
don’t wear bindi
or thread eyebrows
mangled hands
peel fresh mangos
for today’s punch
they glow bright
oranges drinking in
wine and turquoise
Posted 07/18/13
This poem was originally published in 2013 in the River Oak Review.