My Mother’s Brain - Avinab Datta-Areng

The shrub billows and glows in heat.

Monkey shadows lead me on to an

Unremembered line in my mind.

Ferns swivel as if they’ve been

Forgiven by you, everything has

Been forgiven by you, even god,

And every word I will ever write to get

To what you don’t want to remember.

For the longest time whenever anyone

Muttered mother I only heard murder.

When I stepped out of the hospital

That day into the light, I was like

A scalpel held against air’s throat.

I had become dangerous,

From then on forever looking

For what they had removed to resurrect you.

What was the truce made, I ask you time,

What truth of her did you take for

You to resume your flow?

Mother of thought lost to eternity,

I look at the fallen peaches;

Bruised, opened, making me

Drunk with their scent.

Overgrown, flourishing with weeds,

The valley seems impatient to help

Me fall toward it. Small birds make

A line at the mouth of the gutter

Rushing with rain water.

Crowds clamor to see the view,

The unbearable beauty of the rest

Of the world renewed each time

By what you will never utter.

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Avinab Datta-Areng (21st century) India

Source: Scarriet