My Grandmother's Mud by Simone Monteiro

I 'visit' India now.

A cricket cricks and a firefly fires as I walk up to my

Heavy wooden door crumpling up inside jokes.

My toes curl as the angry mud grows angrier

At the unfamiliar suffocation.

Shoe-less children chasing the

Whistling man selling Bella Candy

With old rupees

Are the secret-keepers of the rain.

They look at me through my grandmother's open window

With narrowed eyes swimming

Through the humid, dusty-foot summer.

Waiting.

Waiting for the rumbling of the autorickshaw carrying

My grandmother back from the hospital, the skeleton

Of a procession.

She goes straight to bed.

That's okay though,

I know she's tired.

A tourist now.

A sister to the new mall built by

My grandmother's house,

A brother to the chattering of

Foreign voices

Grating in English.

One-person conversations choke me as the days

Go by, but the lizards by my grandfather's picture frame

Know why I'm here.

I hold my grandmother's hand

Desperately.

She squeezes my hand lightly,

And refuses to

Let go.

The wind blows past me, unintimidated.

Relentless

Land breathes with me,

But the mud is still unhappy.

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Simone Monteiro is an Indian poet, writer and artist based in Durham where she is completing her BA in English Literature. She likes to write about her personal experiences and thoughts, intersecting it with social issues. In her spare time, she enjoys cross-stitching and reading postcolonial theory.