Dignity

by Naisha Randhar, on dignity

Sitting on the roof, I wonder (if grief

really breaks people) about my naani,

how she wraps her reflection in a

rouge saree, like the bold lips

of death. Like the ocean outside

her childhood room, bursting

from her bones, celebratory, red. At

sixteen, her last parent slipped

like a meteor into darkness. Mistakes

are also a kind of fate, a stranger says.

Hope, too, a veering promise. (I make

up images in my head: her rain

-soaked body, flustered

by the night, the tide

roaring close.) Here, the clocktower

chimes, and time appears, a mirage

of the day she wove her saree

into her chest and danced

through the abyss. (Come closer.

Look down. Tell me,

how would it feel to be

knocked to the knees of the

living, sudden, flat?) It’s painful

to wish on the endlessness

of the stars. (Do you hear

stars in this poem?)

In mourning, she sails, her saree

hit, hit, hit by waves,

gliding, reckless, for this violence, to

these violets in the cemetery.