In Between

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This post’s late because all day yesterday

I travelled between my homeland and home -

curried cubed fish and three small golap jaam

were served for lunch in a neat airline tray;

though deboned fish isn’t the Bengali way

it was still festive, throwback to the drums

still being played at the marquees. I heard them

at 30,000 ft somewhere near Bombay.

All day yesterday I travelled between

being a mother and a daughter, a parent

to parents and child. On my in-flight screen

old Hindi films spooled out dramatic events,

a three-hour ten-minute stopover meant

thinking what 'mother' has now come to mean.

Mary Jane, Narcissa, Jasmine and Chicken Liver

 

 

Our shoes identical mary janes

hers with a discreet trim around the sole
mine has nothing, just tan and plain
both crunching evenly on the sands
as she takes me home, a shared paper cone
of chickpeas passed between our hands

 

I’m a bit tired of Lady Macbeth

Be glad, by this time next year
we’ll be struggling with the context
and complexities of Raja Lear, best
not complain. I know, but I’ll still be happier
when I am finally done with that Friday test.

 

Ammi we’re home. Who’s with you?

Hello Aunt.  Oh I see, hello dear,  do
make yourself comfortable wafts
from the kitchen with blood and vinegar
freshly slaughtered chicken liver
cumin sizzling in oil, tossed

 

and served on a bed of sliced onion,

limes in small bowls, jasmine
white rice and singles of hot flatbread
cooked and immediately passed in
eat it warm, daughters, bread stiffens
if you let it cool.  We certainly break

 

more than bread together, we scoop rice grains

with our fingers, we scoop narrow paths in the sahel
hazed with the harmattan; we share the smells
of school mornings, both our mothers’ kitchens,
we are told not to be wasteful with food
we don’t think to apply the lesson to childhood.




Linked to Poetics @ dVerse where everyone is talking about food