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After after

 for Shreyasi 

After the monsoon high noon sun was sliced thinly in unequal measure, the bread buttered, the harvest husked, and the earth split between dharti1 and za(jo)meen2;

and after new nations plucked old tongues from the same branch of the old vad3 tree, disregarded the chatter of its many djinns as birdsong, and straightened its hanging roots into rulings and borders in courts and school notebook pages;
 
and after history was freshly re-inked in jamun juice on familiar roads that spaghettied endlessly, having lost their way and their voice along with their names of dead emperors—because to name is to remember and to write is to record;

and after the farmer hurled insults at the government, hulled his tamarind, hailed the rain gods, and हलed4 away at broken soil and system because to him हल was solution to everything;

and after I learnt—to ride a bike, kiss a boy, break open poems and pain like a pomegranate spilling secrets, jewels and blue bloodstains—and that elections were fought with gulmohar stamens regardless of whom you voted for;

and after our fiery spirits kept us alive through the winter, wanting to burn it all to the ground until they burnt down our homes and our faith and our 'friends' choked the hosepipe with their foot;

after it all turns to shit or ashes—whichever comes first; after debilitated is the new disabled and we are possibly all branded as mad; after all the spoons in the land are smelted into armour made to able-bodied measure leaving us to rage like we love—naked—breasts exposed immodestly;
 
after I-love-you and I-care-for-you do not mean the same thing because they are exhausting—so exhausting that they can no longer be done simultaneously, and we have exhausted exhaustion…

Then,
friend,
meet me at the intersection—
we will rest in the debris and marvel at the glorious blaze we be—
failures united, ignited.
 
Notes:

 1 धरती (Hindi) /ˈd̪ʱɐ̝rt̪i:/ Earth
 2 زمین (Urdu) /zɐ̝ˈmi:n/ Earth; জমিন (Bangla) /ˈjo:mɪn/ Earth
 3 વડ (Gujarati) /vɐ̝d̺/ Banyan tree. Banyan trees are believed to be the abode of supernatural beings.
4  हल (Hindi) /hɐ̝l/ A plough; a solution to a problem.

 

 
Pinka PopsicKle, "After after" from Zoeglossia: Poem of the Week, Sept. 12, 2022. Copyright © 2022 by Pinka PopsicKle. Reprinted by permission of Pinka PopsicKle.
Source: Zoeglossia: Poem of the Week, Sept. 12, 2022 (Zoeglossia, 2022)