Play Time

Knot over knot,
tear within tear,
wound inside wound;

a set of infinite babushka dolls,
identical,
yet each a different face;
the smaller they get,
the more blurred the details,
the more terrifying,
trapped deep inside their stacked caskets,
a tiered tomb of cascading pain.

I want to
fill them with water,
one handful at a time,
from an endless sea,
so they drown,
inside each other,
outside each other,
with their painted smiles,
no way to escape.

Or bore a hole,
straight through their
aligned heads,
so they can see,
as the sunshine creeps
through the tunnel of hurt,
see outside their world of
ascending hate.

Instead, I drag them outside,
wider than my outstretched arms,
higher than my pigtailed head,
out into the shining backyard,
where jars of gulkand,
rose petals and sugar,
congeal in the sunshine
into sticky sweetness;
where brown tamarind pods
and bright red chillies,
paint the dust
in the yellow light stripes;
where rings of smoke
from slender beedis,
rise over black flies
sipping from empty teacups.

Drag them out
into the backyard,
undo knot under knot,
wipe tear outside tear,
mend wound beyond wound,
each with a different face.

The dolls are ready.
It’s time to play.

Linked to Dverse Poets