Memory is a reptile : Three poems
Flood
Home is too small a word for
everything it tries to hold in itself
There are unclean glasses with stains
of half-finished chai on top
of my mother’s voice
She has been screaming since
morning to turn off the tap
It has flooded the kitchen
and all the other rooms
My grandmother cannot hear though
we have to shout a little harder
but not without gentleness or
we will all sink
Someone left the butter out last night
and it looks like oil spill on a pillow
but we cannot do anything now
We are all deep inside
holding our breaths
Only tea leaves and oil and
mothers and daughters and
stains so many stains to
hold on to and
to let fall
I broke the sun
I saw the sun after so long
it nearly fell into the sink
I did not realise and
spat on it
It was too late
it had already
broken its form
and began to melt away
seeping through circles
Like a sunny side up
curdled and the bread
now smeared with the
morning instead of
sticking to its place in
little bites and colour
Where is the day going
to go now?
I cannot see so far
down the drain
if the yellow heat
is the only thing
that remains
It will inevitably come
out the other side
still too hot and liquid
to touch
I will know
when it leaves
a little red rash on
my fingertips
Children
Children are terrifying
They see everything
They see you looking at your
mother’s photo and ask
What is that?
A map
you tell them
They tell you
when they are hungry
and you tell them
you do not just give
love you store it for
an emergency
They ask you where
you keep the love stored
You take them to a
box of snakes under the bed
Now they wake up early
to share their breakfast
with the snakes
and when they grow up
and someone will ask
Tell us a bit about yourself
they will say how they love
to be scared
and that they love to
collect boxes of all shapes
and sizes
and that snakes want to be
birds when they grow up
Sunakshi S Nigam is a multidisciplinary creative based in New Delhi, India. A journalist by academic training, she runs her own visual art & design practice, Studio Indigofrizz. Writing is an integration of all parts of her. As a writer, she is curious about the liminal space between history and memory and the little burrows of time that truth hides in.
