Loss

a poem by Priya Mani

Blackish blue, brownish black
Yellow orange specks, green stripes and
Red, vanity displayed
In the garden today

Three drops golden, two
Pink lines, two pink lines
A shaping morula, so much delight
In the span of a night

One on the champa tree, one
On the pomegranate flower
One on the guava blossom, one
On the banana bower

Eight is now sixteen
Sixteen thirty two
There’s something else she
Demurs, you both must know

Gobbling, growing grubs
Fatter by the day, these
Pestilent pre-wingers
Must be eliminated, they say

Encroaching, usurping tender
Budding toes, malevolent
Villainous invaders must
Be terminated they say

Green bottles, white powders
Misty spray dousers
Fluttering fragments of
Joyful winged angels

Tubes intravenous, speculum
Oxygen cylinders, congealed
Cherry clots of
Nascent warm bundles

Bereft is the garden, barren
Is the womb, hose pipe
Tears squelching
Quenching in vain