My Mother At Sixty Six

Driving from my parents

home to Cochin last Friday

morning, I saw my mother,

beside me,

doze, open-mouthed, her face

ashen like that

of a corpse and realised with pain

that she was as old as she

looked but soon

put that thought away, and 

looked out at Young

Trees sprinting, the merry children spilling

out of their homes, but after the airport’s

security check, standing a few yards

away, I looked again at her, wan, pale 

as a late winter’s moon and felt that old

familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,

but all I said was, see you soon, Amma,

all I did was smile and smile and

smile……