Status Updates From Historians of Redundant Mom...

in between

A courtyard is neither a home nor a street.
A threshold to write against
what’s inside: walls, dining tables
beds, closets, porcelain tea sets
and the claustrophobia of familiar
faces in every corner.

Mother is a collage of at least three things—a desire to create history,
a desire to stay away from history, a desire to be carved into history by
others. Like all women who effortlessly recombined these things, she, too,
harbored a hole inside. A hole that some preferred to call loneliness. But
Mother didn’t. Precisely because no one could ever ascribe shapes or colors to it. But this hole had both.

THE WALLS OF THIS HOME

A faint attempt to trace my fingers along these walls; too many pasts to
unembrace. Too many catastrophes breathing through each others’ mouths, trying to erase the inevitable prequels and sequels. Yes, we have left behind our child-brides hanging from the barbs on the wires.

"the doll’s head is an uncharted city. A house purged
of dolls overflows with cautionary tales, oft-repeated. Repaired
into proverbs: early to bed early to rise, honesty is the best policy.
Listed wounds, chanted in hushed undertones: blistered
remembrance. A grandmother wakes and finds several
little girls inside her sari pleats. A mother breaks a long word
right through the middle—toitombur—into two.."