by Lopa Banerjee
In a puddle of memories and rain,
I bury my greedy feet.
In its ripples and glittering particles,
My girlhood breaks apart.
The water is the croaking of frogs
And the first shock of menstrual blood
Dripping through my undersized pants.
The colors cleared, a panic in my mother’s voice
When I waddled, in my face and chin
Fairytales waning.
“It’s dark,” a shout, “Come back home at once.”
The maiden smell of jasmine, a girl in the crosswalk,
The colors of the coconut trees and rain,
The colors of dirt in my palms and feet,
Atomized into zigzag curves of want.
In a puddle of memories and rain,
A child’s drawing, scrapes of useless artifacts
Hum quietly, and die out.
I am trying to lose my awkward dictions,
The accents of suburbia, sure to leave
No trace of the damp, muddy face,
Trudging carefully through the sterile,
Safe fairgrounds in the waning sunlight.
I watch, from the safe distance
Of the rearview mirror, a lone bird,
The song of its wings flapping,
The puddle, a cradle, as I watch from afar
A sudden melting of time and eternity.
Should I walk through this maze of reluctance
And paint my hands and feet in mud,
Learning to fall in bones, sphincter and grace?
The water whispers seductively.
Between us, a zebra-crossing of blood and blossoming,
Of sacrilege and promiscuity.
In my faltering steps, the crushed visage
Of memories smile crooked,
In their wrinkles, showing shamelessly.
Pic from https://www.flickr.com/photos/
Rich with imagery and cultural facts… Beautifully rendered…
Superb poem! The poem rings with pathos the seeming fleeting innocence of a girl when innocence is actually lost or corrupted by superstitious/social nuances and apprehensions by the older women passed through this exact stage, without changing notions but carrying them forward through generations.