I sometimes think of Delhi

You too are not my mother

yet there is on my body

a second navel, a mark,

a closed, healed mouth of a scar

where the pulsing cord was severed

between us finally.

I don’t look at navels often.

I’ve travelled perhaps too far;

sometimes I spot a rampart,

an alien ringed boulevard,

the glint of foreign waters.

And I think of you then.

Of course there is no return;

no-one knows that better than me.

Each spring new flowers, new shoots;

brisk autumns of foreign fruit.

But somewhere a jamun tree

still dances in its crushed-fruit skirt.

Mother's Day is being celebrated here in Egypt today. Yasmin deshe yadachar. I am greatly fortunate in that I have more than one mother. Remembering and honouring all the women who grew me up and the places they grew me up in. Happy Mother's Day!