Sonnet of the Sitar Baby by Sara Davis

Where east meets west, at Brooklyn’s Dead Horse Bay,

I washed up on the densely littered strand

To finger frets, and soundless ragas play

For bones and trash cast up here on the sand.

Not long ago, when Asia beckoned

Across the seas, and New York beckoned back,

I decorated mantles and was reckoned

Exotic figurine — until a crack

Formed when admirer slip-fingered

And dropped me down to earth with a tiny crash.

Abandoned by my owner, I malingered

In barrels, barges, and a sea of trash.

   Amid the horse bones neighing each to each

   I strum my silent sitar on the beach.