Agoloso Presents - Atondido Stories Agoloso Presents - Mama Mada | Page 234

Mama Mada
Cousin Migrant
by Mo na Arshi
She came from the skies, and tells tales of a black sun.
They say she’s been with child for 14 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 10 syllables.
She says everything should be simmered to a thick reduction.
Girls like you are a storm in a tea-cup.
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