By Heera Unnithan
YOURS AND MINE
We talked
of the education system,
Our daughters’ baby rebellions
their precocious love stories. The sudden
showers, the mango flowers falling,
a spurt of night sky on the Arabian jasmine,
farmers' tragedies. The politics
of religion
plaguing boundaries,
marauding ideologies. The role
of fat in heart ailments,
senility’s frail disposition. All except
the premature separation, that we couldn't wait for.
We are told
“You should not talk about this,
to each other,” while they scramble
books on the shelves, crockery, preserved papers, nailed photographs. Also
the Grandma cot,
the almirah made of teak holding on to an ancient breath, dented bronze, titbits of a decorated past, all to be tagged now, as yours or mine.
So I talk to you:
getting back to work
after this hysterectomy,
the bones that will weaken,
and, that non-allergic hair dye.
Heera Unnithan is an ophthalmologist from Kochi. She co-authored a Malayalam poetry collection withher sister. Her English poems have appeared in a few Indian journals. Vanessa is her debut novel.
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