when my grandmother lost her teeth she thought
she could grow paddy in her mouth. she stole
seedlings from the small field no longer hers:
half of it sold off by her schoolmaster father
for benches and dowry and the other half
sold off by her rubbertapper husband for toddy
and dowry. she drank pails upon pails of water
from the well she wasn't supposed to draw from.
in lieu of sunlight she sang lullabies to me
and her gods with her mouth open. to make
room for more rice she weeded out words.
she plucked the crops with her own fingers
pretending to pick fishbones from her teeth
because no one believed she'd lost them all.
in silence she gave birth to a slush of husk
and bran and cradled it in the unflushable toilet.
in the hospital, on the waterbed, she didn't tell
anyone, not even me, that the sores on her back
were the next batch of roots. didn't sing to anyone,
not even her gods, about the oxymask that didn't
let her breathe in the last harvest of her mouth.
~ ajay
25/5/2024
first published in The Ear
