Slivers of Time
Your fingernails are
Half silver moons,
Holding my face —
Your hair the whisper of night sky
I feel on my lips—
You are here.
Yet, you are someplace else.
I lean into the wall
That held us once
Together.
Now it breaks under my weight.
All I hold in my hands
Is the crumbling past
That falls at my feet
Among the grains of sand.
I am not the madman they
Can pelt to death for love
I have learnt to live
With swallowed tears
They cannot see the cankers inside
This mouth.
Each step I take
Is with you alongside me
Your fingers inside my pockets
Your head nesting on my shoulder
Your breath this steam
That rises in the cold air.
You are here.
So what if you are already
Someplace else.
An Existence
We lead our separate lives.
You smoke in the verandah
I smoke up in the kitchen
You inhale out of choice
I inhale because I have no choice.
Sweet Dessert
I don’t cook dessert but suddenly want to try
my hand at the old favourite, the rice-kheer.
I pick my information from the internet,
the present goddess of all knowledge.
Here too I search, for there are varieties
I am a looking for a particular taste of home
I decide to go with the YouTube version
I’d rather not read. Watching, listening is easier.
Her voice in my ear, ‘Soak the rice…’
I turn around to look; mother is not there.
I go through the motions as shown on YouTube
A cheerful young man is giving instructions.
‘You should have added saffron,’ she says.
I knew something was missing.
The smell of cardamom fills the air.
I want to dunk my face in rice-kheer.
We have strained relations for some time
Living in the same city, we do not call.
The Kohl of Their Eyes
Father dips his finger into
Thick paint.
Surma stand in front of him, stripped naked.
Surma, named Surma, the best in what she does.
Surma, named Surma, the kohl that outlines eyes.
She is both. But now her arms are crossed,
Sometimes across breast, sometimes across thighs.
Father ignores her look of shame.
Mother stands in a corner, head down,
Looking from a corner of her eye.
Father dips his hands into
Thick pink paint.
It has to cover her.
Horizontal and vertical slashes across skin.
She cannot understand her nakedness in front of him.
She cannot understand his using her as canvas.
Her mind whirls. Her body is still.
Father dips his arms into
Thick, viscous, pink paint.
He mutters to himself,
“They want a pink bride.”
His arms hang finally from his side.
Dripping paint. Pink on mud floor.
“I am done,” he walks out the door.
Mother comes and makes her wear red.
Red blouse, buttons at back.
Red petticoat, red sari, red lips, red nails.
Red plastic flower in hair.
“Don’t cry,” warns mother, eyes of lead.
“The pink should not turn black.”
Surma is silent, shamed, shocked and shaken.
She stands quiet and still, quite still.
She is a good student, top of the class.
She can run and jump
Like only a young girl of twelve can.
Her face lights up when she laughs,
Like only a young girl’s can.
Surma, named Surma, the kohl that outlines eyes.
Her dark glow now a ghastly pink.
Mother leaves, for ‘they’ are coming,
To see the bride-to-be.
Father has already left.
Getting ready, for ‘they’ are coming.
To see the bride-to-be.
Surma opens the window and jumps.
Surma cannot live a lie.
Surma cannot live with the shame
Of her father painting her pink.
She runs away to the river.
She removes the red. She washes the pink.
She allows the tears to run.
Then she runs towards the sun.
She will survive this.
Her skin glows.
Alive, vibrant, her own.
Surma, the best in what she does.
Surma, the kohl that once defined their eyes.
My Aching Heart Tonight
Your love was green when you first came
You have left a winter with me tonight
How often do I call your name
It’s a song of futility for me tonight
Love may return but is never the same
How often I said this to you every night
Only you to my aching heart laid claim
I heard your footsteps leave me this night
Did my love blossom only to shrivel at night
It wasn’t to have happened ‘ankahi’ tonight.
These poems were part of The Poetry Issue 2023, curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of these should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
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