Birthing

Diya Chaudhuri

Jhulan Chaudhuri
August or April, 1941

My father can’t remember his age.
He counts forward from the fourth grade:

it’s 1950, and India defeats
the Marylebone Cricket Club. Nine

then; sixty-eight now. I ask him
the month of his birth.

He says August, but maybe April.
Lunar calendars, etc.

But births are profane, he supposes,
when placed in the light of damn good cricket.

**

Diya Chaudhuri
January 11, 1985

My poor mother labored for three full days
before I slipped, flailing, into this over-bright world.

My eyes were always too large
for this head, all the more unsettling

on a child. Ghost-eyed. Is that why I cling to the past,
ghosts of neglected memories?

Can I, ghost-eyed, remember
refugee camps? Can I tease forth the sensation

of earth shuddering below his feet
as it learns its new name?

**

Pakistan
August 15, 1947

What shuddering, what sloughing earth, this,
newborn and learning her new curves.

The pebbles of her, her dung, her snakes
were scattered in the midnight hour.

This day she wakes, still tired
from last night’s agitations,

watchful as ever. Morning aches
of motherhood, of breasts swollen

with new milk.
Today she is responsible

for the pebbles and the dung, for snakes,
their tongues flicking, cautious.

What place is this?
What home can we improvise here?

–

Read our Interview with Diya

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