LIGATURES

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Fatter, wider, longer we loom

as the bangles of our grandmothers shrink

to the size of a ring

that although old and borrowed

turn our fingers blue.

 

On the day I was bandaged

in sari and gold

to stop the ways of the new from leaking,

a fine tinkle of a tune

wrung its song around my neck

and across the cut of each starving ankle.

 

Old blood and new money dripped

step by step, fresh to the banquet filled with

big bellies of rice freshly squeezed

into gastric bands that I wished were tight muzzles.

 

Surgery is not an option for the tug in my tummy

that knows knots are used for the preservation of life

as well as strangulation and the ties of tradition.

 

There are other ways to release our throats

and fork our tongues

just as there are other ways to evolve and unravel

using scissors instead of a scalpel.

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*First published in Passengers Journal, June 2022.

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