Nabina Das
Vivas to rivers
Vivas to rivers
After Martín Espada
How does a girl love, how —
she grows up and leaves her gods
and lovers and walk miles and miles ahead
how does a girl make way in between
traces of sand and body slime
spot to spot
all where we went because we didn’t have routes
all who we loved are our secrets.
My grandma called hens Muslim birds, so pigeons
became birds of sanskar, pure thoughts despite the shit
they spluttered on our walls.
Because the neighbour had another word for a fruit
we stopped saying what the vagina dreams
when we spoke of faces we measured tones
trebles and some sprinkling of farce
How will the girls utter: dream, rebel, rise!
We’ll traverse laws on our uterus, surrogate identities
and rewrite geographies. Because poets must. We will.
Deep autumn now. Our breath is fast. We become the river, we the verse.