On a stool in a new bathroom.
Mugs of water poured, gently over my head
relieve me from sweltering heat.
A wet ear held next to a cellphone.
I hear hysterical sobs,
then silence, to gain composure -
"Are you ok?"
Thathi, in Navi Mumbai
imagines my communal bath
in Nellore before Nalugu.
Her innards churn,
she demands
that I stop it immediately.
She tells me how
her mother was stripped naked on her wedding day
before being made to wear a new saree.
This cloak of protection thickens across generations,
just as the cloak of shame thins out.
I've bathed with friends at fourteen-
a drenched state
isn't mortifying anymore.
Mugs of water poured, gently over my head
relieve me from sweltering heat.
A wet ear held next to a cellphone.
I hear hysterical sobs,
then silence, to gain composure -
"Are you ok?"
Thathi, in Navi Mumbai
imagines my communal bath
in Nellore before Nalugu.
Her innards churn,
she demands
that I stop it immediately.
She tells me how
her mother was stripped naked on her wedding day
before being made to wear a new saree.
This cloak of protection thickens across generations,
just as the cloak of shame thins out.
I've bathed with friends at fourteen-
a drenched state
isn't mortifying anymore.
Published in the Hong Kong based Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, Issue 56: Home (November- December 2020)
https://vvpoetry.com/2020/11/07/issue-57-november-december-2020-special-feature-home/
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