swastika

she is splendid in her sea green sari sees me staring down the silver hooked cross with sanskrit symbol for om embossed on its heart hanging above her dining room breakfront between an incense tray and a dancing shiva figurine she says she knows that for my people it is a mark of hatred and murder but to her people it brings well-being and peace appeared on cave walls in the bronze age meant healing to the navajo adorned coke cans and boy scout medals before being coopted more recently by monsters why should she feel shame it reminds her of making offerings in the temple with her grandma reminds me of the temple down the lane from my grandma torched to ashes under its wave I do not ask if she has been to auschwitz or placed a stone on a spray-painted grave she has cooked me tikka masala in her home she does not ask if I have seen varanasi or bathed in the ganges ringed by jasmine and primrose I do ask what if everything hurtful even to a stranger could be relinquished no matter how cherished and she asks what if everything could be redeemed we are the same head with converse faces like a janus word like weather or cleave and yet when she speaks its name the sound is of silk not of blade I may be too soft for this world and too hard for the next or perhaps the opposite when we are long gone the mark will be saved she says by its sacred past and scarcely remembered for evil she is splendid in her sea green sari