She knows the mound of the dead 
where the dead speak with words. 
She is made an existence 
like butterflies 
cased in museums. 
She inscribes the Indus: Fish, Roof, Sun

Her body, defined in 
 shisham-mehndi land 
         is the knowledge of irrigation 
the way peepal trees survive ritual flooding, 
            she knows the depth of wells 
                   bathing near granary stores 
                             she is Indigofera tinctoria 
                 smelting copper ore. 
She watches the making of a seal: 
              A woman holds a tiger by its throat 

She outlines the cosmos. 
Woman, 
like slow rotating Venus 
       the mother of Methuselah. 
An academic who discovers her 
voices a history of counting artifacts 
superimposes shadows of 
‘idol, fertility goddess’. 
She, made of human breath 
       is the meaning of, A piece of clay: A two horned bull, A rhinoceros 

Woman, 
rising like Moenjo-daro 
pressed with invisible circular prints; 
you are the map of a civilization 
                     geometric neural network, 
                      an undecipherable language 
                            you are, the eyes of Sindh 
                                          where the dead have words.