My grandmother’s hands
In a fading photograph, they sit一双手Newly-wed still. They pause,hovering in a chant of numbers wavering into silence, and words slipout of reach 一粒, 两粒, 渐渐溜走like grains of rice through parted fingersuntil cupped hands left almost barrenwait only to receive a voice: it
Ditch Lilies
All across the yard, false peach. Elm trees spitting shadow on their heads. Like an ocean, he says, thumbing the brim of his cap, like lilies. The golden in them. We’re far away from ourselves, her ashes dusted in a field, your voice still scattering my dreams. The pastor bles
An Hour After the Phone Call
the woman with a cigarette curses upwards death takes too long she says she grows inside out to house her flaws laughs again despite the walls she laughs despite the persistence she laughs her raspy voice passes through me and flows into another ear ca
My Mother, After
When my mother’s hair came back slightly thicker, she decided she wanted to dye it bright blue. My dad put on the colour as she sat with a towel wrapped around her shoulders in front of the bathroom mirror. I remember that when she turned to look at me: the frantic smudges around her hair [&hellip
Pest Control
Around mid-March, my mother developed an obsession with killing wasps. The weather was still cold and grey when I arrived home, the threat of the pandemic having driven me from my university accommodation, but as it began to brighten and grow warmer, a few sluggish and lazy queens found their
The Lakebed
In a riverless city, the promise of water is enough. My mother and I pin our hopes to each monsoon, and evenings in June that stroll the circumference of our bayou-to-be. Starved of fish, the empty lake harbours cattle, gangs of dogs and cricket games — we see snatches of batsmen thr
Catherine
One of the women I worked for when I first moved here was also named Catherine. She lived in one of those pretty Georgian terraced houses in an expensive suburban fold of the city that I never usually found cause to visit. The front entrance to the house was through a narrow feature door that [&hell
Tasbih
(I don’t want this poem to be in English) I once called you rosario, a crucifijo clenched in the hand of Abuela whose lágrimas are a stuttering lluvia que cae al rancho. It cuts carretera-stones, prays for the roadside skulls of drunken sons. I want men to stop leaving her: for Abuelo Güicho to
University: An Only Child’s Guide
In my experience, only children are raised in two ways. The first has always been treated as a child, the second as an adult. The stereotypical Little Prince/Princess model of Only Child is a product of the former upbringing. I was the latter: my mother explained to me, aged 10, that I was essential