Image: © Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester
This Sunday Morning
I watch you from the kitchen window, digging
in, reaching for the good earth, summer-baked in
suspended animation, knee-deep in love.
The kids are asking for Daddy, the dog needs
to pee, and the coffee has dribbled its last
drops into the pot – sediment settling
like dust on the windowsill, an hourglass sifting
time – but I know better than to drag you
into this day of taunting clocks and tired errands.
Hunched over your little purple delights, bent at the
knees, busy-bee, your whistles carry Dylan into the
wind. In the pluck and sow of earth-song, you weed out
your worries, unburdened by the weight of what-ifs
and should-haves, digging down, down, deeper.
The pressure cooker lets out a sharp whistle; the kitchen window,
veiled in fog, keeps you from me. I erase urgent circles into
the glass, its surface tense with hope, but you’ve dug yourself
a deep, muddy hole, and the kids are asking for Daddy
again, and I am running out of ways to call you dead.
Roots
My fingers circle the clogged
drain, pulling out chunks of today’s leftover
lunch. I plunge my hands into greasy
galaxies of oil and soap, scraping
and licking at traces of coffee grounds
and dried yolk, noxious vinegar-dressed
salad greens, pungent spice-infused
curries. I come up for air as bits of bone
picked and sucked clean float to the top
like the remnants of an acid-bathed body.
If I squint my eyes to a narrow degree
I can wander back to the marshes –
noodling for catfish with Ma. Heads down in
the hypoxic murky greens, we would reach
for a ripple in its depths as the weeds
tickled our fingers. We’d make a day
out of it – the sun drying our clothes
salty and stiff on our backs as our prize
lay off to one side, grinning wide.
I do as I’m told now. Mop in hand,
armed and ready, I make the necessary
arrangements to surgically remove a
stain. Disciplined in yes sir yes ma’am
yesyesyes I will I am … words cleansed off
me until I’m all theirs; in mind, in
manner. Hunched over in an unsteady
squat, I follow their mud-lined boots from
doorway to hall to carpeted floor, picking
slurs off the ground before they stick.
If I drop the act, settle to the ground
and cross one leg over the other, I could
feel Ma’s calloused palms kneading
through my hair, unravelling knots with
the trained hands of a sailor. This will make
your roots strong, she’d say, working
the oils into my saturated scalp. I could feel her
arms tire, her stories of childhood misdeeds
and adult misgivings slurring us both to sleep
as the long day slumped to a quiet close.
____
Taira Deshpande, a poet and aspiring fiction writer from New Delhi, pursued an MA in
Creative Writing from the University of Manchester. Her poems touch upon themes of grief,
the feminine body, and the natural world, often taking on a critical or self-reflective tone. Her
interests also lie in eco-poetry, environmental writing, and narrative poetry. She has worked
as a freelance editor and proofreader and is currently working on her first collection of
poems. Her blog and other published work can be found on the following website –
https://tairad.wixsite.com/on-second-thought