The lady on the news has a job.
The lady on the news says people die and my father switches the channel.
The government brought back shows from his childhood ,he says.
Shows about gods that built bridges and fought for their wives, fought because of their wives.
It’s a story he knows even though he grew up in a hut without a TV or an attached bathroom.
It’s a story I know because my grandmother read it to me every night, she didn’t have books or pages woven together -
I am bound to her because of her memory.
My grandmother has learned it from her grandmother and her grandmother died of a disease maybe pneumonia ,could’ve been cholera, who knows? Diseases in the villages of Bihar don’t have names.
They just happen to people and people pass away.
Her fingers quietly press a warning into mine.
Don’t let them name daughters after the wives and mistresses and lovers of gods.
My grandmother thinks injustice taints names that have been wronged.
Her faith tells her that names and bad luck can be reincarnated. Her faith tells her to pray the curses off.
Her prayer will mislead the stench of the curses,
Like a lost boy in the Kumbh Mela-
alone in a fair, tasting his tears.
The lady on the news says people die
And my brother looks at my grandmother with suspicion in his eyes.
