Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “When a mortal couldn’t do it, I found a god who could.” by Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal.

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When a mortal couldn’t do it, I found a god who could.

By Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal

I stopped thinking and felt Udaasi’s lips

We talked about old lovers’ lips: the thin ones, the big ones, the good ones, the

never-stop-kissing-me lips

We laughed and tucked our lips inside our mouths to see

what it might feel like

to kiss invisible

I thought about grief-

sick tongues, untouched ribs

holding water, the times I’d washed my bones with grief

Then decided: I won’t place my dried tulip petals in you

I won’t place my sadness in immortal

At 1:53am, fruit flies, peacocks, moths

prehistoric in the cities we’ve lived, wells

without water: I know hurt that has come

Before. I think about the half bottle of wine. Wanting

more—how much can I put in a Devi, a deity created

to hold with me, not for me. I could exhale broken

Mirrors in your mouth—I won’t. Will not lay them on your lips, will not

even slide them down your back. Instead I will ask:

How do I become a prayer that never existed, a lover

awake and exuberant?

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Copyright © Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal

Preeti Kaur Dhaliwal (she/her) is a critical race feminist, writer, facilitator and former lawyer with an MFA from the University of Guelph. Her work has appeared in PRISM international, The Fiddlehead, CNQ, Humber Literary Review, TNQ, Arc Poetry, ti-TCR, the ex-Puritan and Looseleaf, amongst other publications. She’s currently seeking a publisher for her poetry collection about Udaasi Devi, the goddess of grief featured in this poem—a character she created to explore how grief intersects with the sacred and mundane, alongside legacies of empire, race, caretaking, heartache and diasporic Punjabi identity. Learn more at linktr.ee/Jadooberry or @jadooberry/@write.with.preeti.

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