Poem
Meena Kandasamy
Their Daughters
Their Daughters
Their Daughters
Paracetamol legends I knowFor rising fevers, as pain relievers –
Of my people – father’s father’s mother’s
Mother, dark lush hair caressing her ankles
Sometimes, sweeping earth, deep-honey skin,
Amber eyes – not beauty alone they say – she
Married a man who murdered thirteen men and one
Lonely summer afternoon her rice-white teeth tore
Through layers of khaki, and golden white skin to spill the
Bloodied guts of a British soldier who tried to colonize her…
Of my land – uniform blue open skies,
Mad-artist palettes of green lands and lily-filled lakes that
Mirror all – not peace & tranquil alone, he shudders – a
Young wife near my father’s home, with a drunken husband
Who never changed; she bore his daily beatings until on one
Stormy night, in fury, she killed him by stomping his seedbags…
We: their daughters.
We: the daughters of their soil.
We, mostly, write.
© 2006, Meena Kandaswamy
From: Touch
Publisher: Peacock Books, Mumbai
From: Touch
Publisher: Peacock Books, Mumbai
Poems
Poems of Meena Kandasamy
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Their Daughters
Paracetamol legends I knowFor rising fevers, as pain relievers –
Of my people – father’s father’s mother’s
Mother, dark lush hair caressing her ankles
Sometimes, sweeping earth, deep-honey skin,
Amber eyes – not beauty alone they say – she
Married a man who murdered thirteen men and one
Lonely summer afternoon her rice-white teeth tore
Through layers of khaki, and golden white skin to spill the
Bloodied guts of a British soldier who tried to colonize her…
Of my land – uniform blue open skies,
Mad-artist palettes of green lands and lily-filled lakes that
Mirror all – not peace & tranquil alone, he shudders – a
Young wife near my father’s home, with a drunken husband
Who never changed; she bore his daily beatings until on one
Stormy night, in fury, she killed him by stomping his seedbags…
We: their daughters.
We: the daughters of their soil.
We, mostly, write.
From: Touch
Their Daughters
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