Cousin Migrant

Summary

She came from the skies, and tells tales of a black sun.

They say she's been with child for fourteen months,

so we're to stop feeding her the tamarind extract,

guava juice and powder from Dr Nirmal's.

She's essentially a home-body.

I've taught her draughts and the metaphysics of presence;

she'll stay as long as she needs.

Her arms are as thin as margins yet she can lift my children

with ease and do fly-fly with them in the garden.

She's unpersuaded by science, my anatomy lessons

are just crude drawings

and she thinks our doctors have terrible hands.

She believes in butter for burns, that flat stones never lie

and replaces everything with ginger.

The boys on the market stall love her. Her dupatta never slips.

She covers her mouth when she laughs, though her teeth

are perfect white pegs (more perfect than mine).

Someone long ago taught her to listen but not with her ears.

She is the sum of all her parts. Her face is moon:

there are plantings everywhere.

Each night she reassembles herself.

She holds court, cross-legged on the kitchen floor.

She can define emptiness for me in less than ten syllables.

She says everything should be simmered to a thick reduction.

Girls like you are a storm in a tea-cup.