Mother, Father, Sister

 Mother, Father, Sister

Mother, father, sister,
The ceiling is tearing.
The brown brick is cracking 
Underneath the contours of our feet,
The radio doesn’t work anymore.
It plays the same tune again 
And again,
Our ears know routine. 
Rainwater leaks into our home 
Through our eyes, down our cheeks,
But we reach for the cement
And start fixing.
We fix and we fix until-
 

Mother, father, sister,
The water is at our ankles now.
The cushions on the chairs at the dinner table
Are forgetting our figures
And when we eat, we do not remember who we are. 
But there is food, 
And Grandmother taught us how to swim. 
 

Mother, father, sister,
Gratitude feels wrong,
When instead I can carve our initials 
On the tiles in the empty kitchen
Just before the floor gives away. 
 

Mother, father, sister,
The sky is on the ground now
And we will never see the sun again.
All the stars,
All the stars are dead. 
The stove won’t light anymore
But it will never be cold in this home.

Aarti Mukhedkar