By Rinzing Chopel rai
My Adams apple isn’t her loving bosom that she misses
but she's taken it to be and is besotted
How may I find its meaning in this poem?
All children are fed early without a memory
Even I don't recall. It is only by seeing her and other kids
and with her, I get to observe closely
Once upon a time, my mother's dream
must have been a closet on her breast
The magician’s hat or an Aladdin’s lamp
and the only hidden secret was the fondness-
A mother could have for her child
And the thief is the child, born of the womb
stealing the ambrosial gift – bequeathed by her mother
to her and so on. The crib of humanity on which
mankind needs to lie down, burying their faces
in tears and sorrow-
From that deepest seat of compassion
the young suckles her being and is nurtured
And also succoured
As she sleeps peacefully, beneath the shades
of the maternal wings:
Like a fragile egg protected by a hen
When the thread is strengthened deeper
between a mother and child - quite divine
Earlier it was inside her womb. Now, just before her eyes
she feeds her child. No greater solace resides in her:
To see her dream up close and alive
The same is for the infant, befriending
the twin symbolic nipples, touching the mother's skin,
suckling deeper into her soul. Taking what she truly gives:
The cardinal gift of life to grow in the
teeming innocent eyes looking at back at her
Now that must be why my daughter never cried
Though I know she misses her mother terribly
before she goes to sleep-
She knows I am not her wholesome body
Yet she reaches out calling for me –
"Papa, I want your boond"
She's baptized her affirmation to her mother's bosom
already so young. Takes her sweaty palms
and touches my chest and Adams apple
Never close in form or essence to be alike
Yet every night she repeats being her
even awakening in the middle, while asleep
trying to pacify her yearn in my closeness
caressing the muscular part of a man's rib cage
The sanctum of his pride and masculinity-
She tears the facade and comes to know
what tenderly beats within.