ODE TO NAANI AMMIone two beads strumming down her pink thumbs & astaghfaar astaghfaar she sings for her fears are all too real. My naani, her anthem of bliss is for me. Her moonlight of the times when she lit up the cowfat lamp. Her beeping radio sound before blackout Our veranda flooded in eulogies whispered by naani. she gifts me talismans she kisses for the umpteenth time before bed. her poems are mercy. She calls me mercy. calls me soothe. butter ghee. calls me the warm oil she floods my hairline with. Her touch - all feeling Now When the gappaywala wails, wait wait, let silence brood the air & this is harbinger, she is that autumn tree I'm preserving. Don't you see She is me. She/me thumbing tasbeehs I collect pearl lotuses and embroider her sapphire necklaces. her tinted hairline down the equator ON BEING FAT & DYINGEmbrace me in dying light no whispers, no moving jaw. sealed mouth you carry me – in your quake singed with all the powers of manhood/perfection. The first time he called me fat & sick & useless like the Chinese leftovers, Trump and armpit hair. He meant it. He meant it when he staked chemo faggot through my pelt. I blame DNA like an unwanted reality, like that surgery scar kissing my belly. My war prize. 46 chromosomes and my dying light 46 chromosomes & nowhere left to go. He meant it when he pushed me down the concrete sidewalk, smell burnt tyre & sugar spit like it’s heavenly. like chomping down nails is an act of god. He asked me to shake the dust & I prided forever. in sap, skin – all the flesh & this saturated oil in everything in me. No blood, no room to call home adipose a native city. Plump, yet mellow Whisper in my skin & love me no more 
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