There are more stars, you used to say, than all the rice in your aluminium tub. On my banana leaf, the stars heap and watery chutney milky-ways around them, around clumps of kadle-manoli asteroids. A lone happala shines chipped in the corner, sandige moons orbiting that dwarf planet. Remember how you used to string them

Amma inherited from the grey women, who salt- and-peppered over the cracks in her kori-rotti, the unloving side of mothers. When we cried for pizzas, she, after a beating, would cut uttapams into four slices, and garnish with promises to be better. ** This poem was first published in The Alipore Post

An erasure digitally blacked out from p. 503 of Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. ** This poem was first published in Unlost Journal: Issue 26

Sunday, I wake up excited kori rassa on the stove cuticles red from nails freshly cut Amma digs through my scalp, picking out lice crushing it with her nail a euphonious crunch kote pen teer pen jappo jappo Sunday, I wake up hungover the seeping light hurts my head; hungry for blood, I dig my

you drop your pants and sit royally,  now remove the phone now remove the jet spray use your hands, you’ve never used your hands  but it is  okay   now remove the porcelain throne which your maid laboured on with harpic yesterday been a while you’ve squatted so low,  but it is still okay