Confinement
Jharokha
The dentist injects my gums
with liquid lies. It is for dulling
the pain, he says. My molars
are bound in metal bands; they
slash my cheeks every time
my voice feels rebellious.
A wire is fenced over the teeth
to complete this confinement.
My tongue is confused about
any movement in this barb-wired
city; a city that looks like a bloody
war site each morning before
I brush and floss. My mouth is
Kashmir, is Palestine; is a witch,
a homosexual. My voice is waiting
to oust the fictive.
Wrapped in the fabric
of my pink dupatta,
Begum Bazaar is
the fabled navel in
the eye of antiquity.
The streets stomach
quaintness mutely,
like measured gulps
of Irani chai. We walk on,
moving in a soft-haze
of sounds and colors.
You propose a game of
make-believe. We spend
hours trying to imagine
this street a thousand
clock-years before.
I erase cable poles
and electric wires off
the canvas, then this,
then that, and then some
more. You chuckle.
We're distracted
by an itr-seller with old eyes
that map sadness on
old-mosque surfaces, selling
perfumes that will linger
long after its all over.
The Charminar looks on,
as it drowns under the weight
of its own history, year after year.
The recipient of the Nissim International Poetry Prize 2020, Nikita Parik holds a Master's in Linguistics, a three year diploma in French, and another Master’s in English. Her debut book of poems, Diacritics of Desire, was published in April 2019. Her works are forthcoming/ have appeared in The Alipore Post, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Mad Swirl, & The Metaworker.
