Stunning poems from A. Anupama who also translates classic Tamil love poems (on Numéro Cinq: here and here): you can see the traditional Tamil markers (the lotus, Shiva, the hibiscus blossom, the poem to a lover). But A. Anupama has welded the old to the new, the new being an American vernacular, an easy, confident humour, and a lovely way with line breaks and rhyme (internal and slant rhymes). There is a surprise, a turn in every line. And, oh my goodness, the parrot --- the parrot that disappears into the hibiscus in the first poem (the flower ends up in Minakshi's hair) returns in a later poem to croak the words of Shiva: "Will destroy you all, all, all, all...” over its sleeping mistress.