Quaint protocol hallelujahs:
Open palms mean I'll take crumbs
A nod of the head, your presence
     makes time stand still
Middle finger raised signifies:
     I am sexually available
Fist shaken at the sky a request
     for the company of humans,
     not the gods.
The meanings have altered with use
and it has become difficult to hear
the root-gesture.
No simple motions can convey
the old meanings anymore; words
are generally necessary intermediaries
that can be shaped into these meanings
and more. But vocabularies of feeling
still shelter in the body's micropositions,
and humans continue, one by one, two
by two, three by three, to practice asanas,
and receive mudras, shape themselves toward
one another in meaningful ways.

*

Tell my mother I'm not here yet
I'm not ready to see her here
where it's dark and one must say the truth.

Even though it's the afterlife
tell her I'm not here yet.