Kālī, you are the poster-goddess, sticking out your black
tongue, like Gene Simmons from Kiss, a kick in the teeth,
with your punk-blue leggings, your skull-and-scissor charms.

You swing a trident, a demon’s head, and dance on the bones
of a pale Shiva. I recall the convincing eyes of a girl cripple
carrying your bottled effigy, as our bus careened to a dusty halt.

Some say you morphed from Pārvatī, drunk on blood,
others cite your superhero leap from Durgā’s brow to slay
the self-cloning serpent before a Haka dance on mythic soil.

By a hundred Sanskrit names, India claims you in a single text,
while in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, you are
‘the grass and the dew’, on screen, our contemporary Judge Judy

having a bad hair day. I’d argue for your cosmopolitanism,
a global denizen, you’re adroit in drugs and aphrodisiacs, a nude
dominatrix, a feminist export with a sadomasochistic bent.

A figure of partition you were cover girl for Time magazine.
A neo-pagan diva, your wholeness is darkness fashioned
from light, moon-breasted, with eyes of fire, with Brahmā’s feet,

Varuna’s watery thighs. You rise from the grave, step over
carnage, feeding the world and your severed self with blood.
Stripped bare as Duchamp’s Bride, you set bachelors in motion.