Portrait

She stared out of the picture in the old metal frame,
diamonds flashing in her nose and ears,
a yellow saree swept across her shy shoulders,
vermilion dust parting her curly hair,
a bemused question on her glowing face;
photographed for the first time,
the only time.
Not yet twenty.
Outside the moon ticked softly towards a nervous dawn.

A child bride at thirteen,
village elders had matched horoscopes,
plotted with the stars to select a date,
counted seven steps around the sacred fire;
two children before she learnt to read,
dying with the third
their innocence dissolving in a river of blood.
Not yet twenty.
Faint fingers of dawn, like freshly washed henna, were breaking open the sky.

Staring back at the portrait,
she wondered at her grandfather,
married again within the year,
the young girl quickly forgotten,
even the children
too young to remember,
even her mother;
just this picture inside an old cupboard, unseen,
with eyes that mirrored her own,
no one noticed, no one remembered,
she had been dead too long.
Not yet twenty.
The house was waking up for a wedding, smelling of sweet ghee and marigold.

She would be bathed
in turmeric and sandal paste,
made up in gold and emeralds and silk,
seven steps around the sacred fire,
tears blamed on the stinging smoke,
showered with soft petals and rice.
she had been dead too long;
what was she telling her, her grandmother,
staring out of the picture frame?
Not yet twenty.
She slipped the diamond ring off her finger and walked into the waiting sun.

For Poets United where the midweek prompt is “Marriage”