By Riya Sharma
In my dream last night, my mother was a shapeshifter.
In a market of painted doorknobs and intricate carpets, she was even more confused
than all the carved crosses
in the shop everywhere
this much holy in so little space.
No ring bowl big enough for God to sit into.
She was shifting shapes
like a broken moon
that has secret motivations
waxing and waning and crescent-ing.
She was her own dark face one second,
Bengali nose that I didn't inherit,
Small eyes that I did.
And the next, she was the colour everybody would've liked
from the start
but without the guileless smile.
And she was searching for something,
and I called out, "Mum!"
She said, "Yes!"
Going through the drawer of miseries,
then looked up and smiled
at having blown her cover — so she picked a new one.
This time her small head had no hair at all.
Bald man! What a sight!
She wanted to translate Ghalib's Urdu mysteries
for the store owner's son.
She looked like a professor, so serious as only to be addressed
by the last name.
And I called out, "Mum!"
She said, "Yes!" and smiled.
And then she was a little kid rocking on a half-finished wooden pony.
She had a lolly in one hand, God in the other.
She was whispering cold red secrets to Him
that only little girls know.
And I called out, "Mum!"
She said, "Yes!" and smiled,
and banged her hand
against her head
her original, Bengali tresses flowing in a wind
that the little shop could not take
at having blown her cover.