“In the village of Behar, India, a girl born with four arms and four legs is thought to be the reincarnation of the Hindu Goddess.”
—London Daily Mail
 
 
From the ocean of my womb
the Goddess Lakshmi herself unfurled
 
her multiplicity of limbs
from my lotus body.

A girl

 
is rarely cause to celebrate,
but the village worshipped her, showered
 
us upon our straw-tick pallet
with jasmine, saffron, every flower
 
from the fields.

But embodiments

of gods are fraught.  She hauled
 
herself about, impediment
of extra arms and legs that wheeled
 
no fortune.  Infected, she fevered
to contain the sacred.  Medics
 
expected death, advised we sever
the superlatives.  But in which did Vedic
 
divinity reside? The scans
were silent, showed no glowing aura.
 
I deferred to learned men’s
certainty, the weight it wore.
 
So, at age two, the deity
divided, requiring multiple teams
 
to execute the surgery
—so many arms! so many arms
 
wheeling!—and after, on the bed,
my daughter, and an amputated form
laid out, beatitude fled—
 
 
A swift recovery. No sign
of sepsis.   One month in hospital,
 
then home.   No vengeance, none divine,
though drought makes our neighbors hurl
 
curses, blame us for luck gone,
dried up.
 

               Make your own fortune, girl.