3 poems by Nandini Dhar

The Order of Things
(After January Gill O'Neil)
I.
 
She thinks of wiping off the vermilion
as she touches the brown patches of her
unusually white face. Nice it would be
 
if she could get back her girlhood countenance
if only for half a day. It wouldn't be hard
to smash the mirror. Taking revenge
 
for being so diligent in showing the red
powder dust on her forehead.  Instead
She picks up the broom.      Wipes
 
every     chair       table       window-sill       bedpost
clean. This moment, too, will be wiped clean
Swept away with what has no place inside
 
 
 
II.
 
My harsh resolve is to write down
everything:                  my mother's efforts
                                       to inhabit defeats
                                       transform them into lore
                                       teething her own tongue to deny
 
a future for herself
 
Even if they are a few lines.
To note down the date, time, fill the journal
pages. Put them under the bed.
 
Written down, moments survive.
 
My own archive of what my mother sweeps away--
 
memories of rebellion which did not break open the fences
 
eruptions capable only of digging out one's own veins
 
recitation of bills of rights without the power to redeem or reject
 
 
 
 
III.
 
What my mother sweeps away
has no name
When I say sweep, I mean
colorless specks
which accumulate at the trunk
of the guava-tree,
giving them shape
keeping the white worms off the roots.
 
 
My ma does not want to swing her broom
beyond the threshold of the courtyard. The guava-tree,
the bamboo-fence belong. In between crisping the potato-
strips and browning the onions for the phoron-smelling
dal, she decorates the tree with pieces of intricately-quilted
clothes, secretly torn apart from discarded clothes.
 
She has also been seen to finger through the mounds
of sand for those perfectly hexagonal pebbles
 
which she hangs around the guava branches
to adorn it further.
She is in love with the guava-tree. More
so than anything else. Especially since this is what that
separates her courtyard from others. Just as owning her
her ivory-shaded skin, her fish-shaped eyes and grapefruit-
lips, raises up my father from all.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
IV.
 My notes,
                                 haphazard
                                 without lyricism
                                 remind her,
                                she was always too fond
                                 of the guava-tree
 
to walk away
 
My memoirs do not offer her
any consolation of nostalgia.
 
I frighten her---
 
I preserve
 
on page
 
in shape
 
in form
 
her moments, when
 
she contemplated
 
wiping away,
 
with one
 
thumb-stroke
 
this very order of things
 
 
 


Ideas
(After Heather Cadenhead)
 
My mother sifts through ideas
as if they are a box of old clothes--
mostly discardable, but one or two
might be still salvaged: darned,        
patched, folded, unfolded
to wear many times more.
 
She cannot let them go,
since parsimony is supposed to be
a cardinal virtue of womanhood.
But mostly, she stacks them
in the corners of the closet--
like old textbooks. Once relevant.
But now just taking up space. Unneeded
at best.
 
Within this sansar-named
well-woven fabric, each
thread with its own distinct
hand movement—chopping
an onion, ironing a shirt, stirring
a stew pot, tying her daughter's hair--
ideas are like spiteful needles.
 
Prick-sharp. Threatening to single out
the  little stitches, one by one,
and examining them  too
closely. Promising an unfurling
of the whole before the fingers
holding the needle realize it
fully themselves.
 
I, on the other hand, during
the days of early youth, wore
ideas like new silk scarves.
My ma didn't necessarily object.
Wasn't I destined to do what she couldn't?
 
Now that I spit them out on my palm,
let them dry, crush them into dust,
and adsorb them into my pores,
my mother and I are running out
of things to talk about amongst ourselves.
 
 


​


Ode To Terraces
 
This is not an ode. At least,
not in the proper sense of the term.
 
This is also not about terraces.
 
This is about the girls
who, even when they try
to escape their mothers' quick slaps
 
avoid attics
especially
those of madwomen
 
They look for something
bluer
higher
closer
to coconut leaves
shaking in air
 
They bend their waists
to listen
without being seen
 
They draw maps
small enough
to fit on pebbles
 
They decipher,
while watching
the humming-bird
skirt the brick wall,
that mothers slap
only those they deem
harmless enough
to hope for
 
Terraces
come handy
because
they administer
expanse
iron-railings stained
by rain
respite
yellow light of the sun
converted
into silhouettes
by leaves
and vines
 
in the same way
mothers
apportion  mourning
shaped into myth
 
most of all,
they are
brick railings
against which
these girls
can break
the gold-colored crayons
in two
without
letting
their afflictions
lighten the colors
of their skins
which
tends to happen
inside
attics
 
That  is
not surprising
since attics
can open
into terraces
 
This is not an ode. At least,
not in the proper sense of the term.
 
This is also not about terraces.
 
This is about the girls
who, even when they try
to escape their mothers'
quick slaps,
avoid attics
especially
those of madwomen

​Nandini Dhar's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Muse India, Kritya,Mascara Literary Review, Off the Coast, Pratilipi, tinfoildresses, First Literary Review, Hawaii Review, Prick of the Spindle, Cabinet des Fees,Stone Telling, lingerpost, Up The Staircase Issue #14, Cartographer: A Literary Review and Penwood Review.

A Pushcart nominee, Nandini grew up in Kolkata, India, and received an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and another M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon. Currently, she is a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at University of Texas at Austin. She spends most of her time inside hole-in-the-wall coffee-shops,trying to finish her dissertation.