Anuska Saha
poetry
Mother was
Mother was a touch first
Fresh from the bath in the hot summer
the smell of soap, each one that she used
became her lullaby
rocking constellations to dewy sleep,
her eruptions – a consequence of the moon.
She turned garlic and kitchen waste
after-shift sweat to warm honeyed milk
Magicked away chalk dust and school lunch
stench with fresh-cut mangoes.
Mother was a sight
Shining centre of the crowd
Immaculate in red, pink and indigo
She turned my raincloud silences
absences and poor appearances
into gold-ribboned apologies
My laughter to tears
tears to laughter, always
when it was least welcome.
On certain winter afternoons
full of remote island rituals
Mother becomes a vagueness
A presence never not there,
forever at my bedside, waiting
for an answer, checking for signs
the unopened water bottle
the empty teacups, the untouched
sweater she left on my bed a week ago, since then
I’ve been busy learning how to don the cold.
Because warmth still is, waiting
in the other room, because
Mother is, as Mother was
and Mother will be.Kitchen at the end of the world Where one stumbles in on practised steps at the stroke of eleven, one and five at the quiet end of a worldeven the moon has shunAnd bend before the midnight fridge stare into its blue-lit belly to scavenge ancient recipes of living and dying Perhaps contemplate the knife, scoff at its bluntness As the time-stained cup holds its breath in a corner with the secrets grandma took to her grave Or swallow with a chug of water scraps of an expired reality like fishbone stuck in the throat And watch the empty plate crack under the weight of a concentrated nothing
Anuska Saha is a writer, independent scholar and musician from Kolkata, India. She recently graduated with an MA in English and writes poetry to record threshold experiences, whether in dreams or the simple yet unnerving act of contemplating objects in everyday life. Her poems have been published in Flowermouth Press and Pendulum Magazine. Find her on Instagram at @exoplasmic_reticulum.
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