Just in Case
My great grandmother stopped each day
at the St Alphonsa shrine
on Brodie’s Road in Madras.
Just in case
saints were a bit like
local goddesses–
extravagant and moody
Just in case
this miracle healer
of an infant’s club foot
could pardon
her unruly children’s trespasses
Just in case
a saint with a foreign name
was better
at blessing
a family that kept spilling
over definitions,
over borders
Just in case
Alphonsamma felt left out
when others surged
around the Murugan shrine.
Just in case
the elders were right
Just in case
the elders were wrong
And then we lost our great grandmothers
And we lost just in case
What Stories Are Left?
[‘Patel Brothers has been bringing your homeland closer since 1974.’ – Grocery bag advertisement]
What stories are left
when separation dries up?
What stories are left
when ancestors are in the bone,
history in the marrow,
the world on tap,
elsewhere on the phone screen?
What of the exiled paramour
who once sent a cloud messenger
across palavering river and scented pine
to a beloved who languished
in a land of mountains, crowned
by whirling diadems of snow?
What of the women
who once arched an arabesque
of arm to smooth sandal paste
over burning acres of skin, running
restless fingers through a liquefaction
of hair, as they waited for distracted sweethearts
to appear at their door?
What happens now
to waiting,
to mandakranta
to time?
Ask the lover in Lower Parel,
now only a shivering
membrane away
from her beloved in Pasadena
Life’s a wheezy accordion, she says,
closing up for the night
Seasons are shutting shop
Elsewhere
is an old wives’ tale
When the cloud of longing becomes
the cloud of unknowing
what’s left?
Just me, she says,
just me
answering my own question.
riding time
like a stallion
into the sky,
just me
shining down
on myself
like starfire
