My great-grandmother counted her
twenty-seven daughters glowing
in the night sky. Chewing bitter
lotus roots, cartwheeling an insane
mind, eons ago she forsook the royal
throne and pearls. The serpent of desire
coiled lazily around her womb.
A coral reef grew on her earlobes
and fish swam in the empty
circle of her words. In her fist,
she held a circular amulet
of trust. Low swung on a hammock
beneath the fig tree, she speared
the mutiny of crows.
Don’t be a horse-head, she chided
the balladeer, who swung by noon,
opening a snuff box carved
from elephant tusk.
Her teardrops flooded the rivers
and she threw a new moon on
the Potter’s wheel each Amavasya.
Twilight bowed by her funereal
cot, in its prophecy, three
footprints of war shiver.
Smitha Sehgal is a legal professional and a bilingual poet who writes in English and Malayalam. A Best of the Net nominee, her poems have been featured in contemporary literary publications such as The Indianapolis Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Osiris, Marrow Magazine, Acropolis Journal, Gone Lawn Journal, Almost Island and elsewhere. She’s the author of ‘How Women Become Poems in Malabar‘ ( Red River, 2023).