Ellai Amman (1), and: Even night forgets

Abstract

Ellai Amman (1), and: Even night forgets Ashik Kumar (bio) Flash without colour at the still or shifting boundaryof sight. Night and day whisper to each otherlike prisoners through a hole in the wall. Salt divides the waterlike a child struggling to rule a notebook. Oysters grow on the sunken stairs and pillarsjaws open to catch drops of the sun and moon. In the sea before memory, amid smells of shit and smokethe mothers that guard this shore hatchedfrom the snake’s three eggs. [End Page 115] Even night forgets The only light on that streetcame from your houseon your wedding day. From acrossthe street I watchedthe shadows on the verandahebb as people moved about inside. When they asked you to danceyou prevaricatedgiving in only when they insisted.Your anklets were strungwith my twelve eyes. I wouldn’t letthe crow’s call reach me.I wouldn’t letthe sun take me elsewhere. I don’t rememberhow I woke upin your houseon that deserted slopewhere you brewed liquorthe color of a moon gone paleto your facethat blocked out the daywith nothing in my headbut two riddles. [End Page 116] When I ripped outevery wordlike snaketeethand offered them spearedon the palmyraswere youthe ocean or the night? What is between us if youare held up by the airand Iam held up by its reflection? I had never been to the villagebut my arrival felt like a return.I had a mother and father there.Years passed. Everyone but usmoved elsewhere. On the highwayempty buses passed in both directionswatched only by the palmyras. There was onlya thin-legged heron standing (Only I saw how, while you were bathing,the egret in one soundless movementspeared a fish and settledon another branch) when he took me. The darkness returned to its senses,could see and hear again. [End Page 117] One day I told my parents“I have another mother and father”and returnedto the dragonflywith a stoneon its backand the spider. Iwas lice in the dreadlocks of a saintand you were the firefly,the living body of memory. [End Page 118] Ellai Amman means “border mother” in Tamil. She guards the boundary between land and sea. She protects fishermen (who live on the beach) from tsunamis. Ashik Kumar Ashik Kumar is a poet from Tamil Nadu, India. He has an mfa in poetry from Columbia University. He has worked as a teacher, journalist, and researcher and is currently based in Toronto. Copyright © 2021 University of Nebraska Press