Brother Mine

Brother mine,

Yesterday, in the dark of the night

Another bad dream dropped by:

One bloody, ghoulish terror

In the dream, I prayed

I prayed that I woke up

‘Cause I erred unforgivably

An accident it was,

As it was in the waking life

An error of a second, and

Now I carry the burden.

I am tired, brother mine,

These men’s words

And my mind’s ways!

I am a walking ghost

Without sleep or rest

Bread is bitter

So is water and wine

Hollow has become my bones,

Brain and blood

Light, white and pale.

Brother mine, guilt chases me around

In loops we go

Every day, every time,

I get sucked into its mouth

A grave that is, a black hole,

Without rock bottoms,

I tumble and topple endlessly.

Brother mine, I think of you!

Ever since that ill-fated minute

You are all that is inside my self,

“He haunts her, Mary,” they tell our mother,

“She is cuckoo, Jack” they tell their sons

And I sit between and among them,

Holding our mother’s weeping heart.

Brother mine, our hapless mother!

She sits there lonely in her room

At times, in the burning middays,

She breaks out and sneaks into mine

With some lemonade in her pink crystals

Looks at me, smiles

And leaves her crystal by my side.

Father comes home every week

In his red Ford

With a few bags of varied veggies

Carrots, beans and beets.

He cooks, cleans, soaks and

On his face, pastes a smile to pull us

Out of our voids.

Some weeks, his smiles win;

Our mother steps outside

In her pink pastel saree

And puts me in organza,

Then we go out, to the gulmohars

Where you lie, still and spent

Under the six feet of Bombay soil.

A dead son below the earth

A forlorn spouse at his feet

And a killer in organza at his side,

Our father stands stooped

Heartsore and heartbroken.

Though his smile shivers and shrinks

His clasp stays unshaken around my shaky self.