All that last day at the cabin,
the lawnmower held you up, you
who could barely stand.
You rammed and rammed the mower
into the raspberry thicket
until we had lawn
where we didn't need it,
didn't want it.

That night, holding your night pail,
your hand went limp. The warm yellow
flowed onto the pine floor, between the planks.
Your teeth clenched. You wailed, a high keening wail.

Once the sounds that came from your lips
were words. When you'd nick a finger
or bump a shin, you'd glare at me, say,
I'd better not get really sick,
you'd never be there.
Then the cancer grew in your brain
and each day you became less and less,
and I was there. Surprised, but I was there.

You were my little boy then, feet wide apart,
rolling around the house in a toddler's gait.
How I loved nuzzling your neck,
squeezing your shoulders. For days
I lay in your arms, sobbing.
You held me tight, your eyes wide,
no change at all on your face.

- Lucille Broderson from her collection, Beware (Spout Press)

A Recipe
Translated from the original in Malayalam by Sugatha Kumari

Chop fine into
very thin pieces,
drip salty tears and stir,
add the spicy flavor
of an impotent rage,
sprinkle the shame of
bitter insults,
and cook in simmering heat.
Sputter a little ridicule,
garnish with a pinch
of the sweetness of love,
before serving the dish.
Today your lunch
should taste great, dearest.
Oh, you are a vegetarian?
It’s alright. This a just
a trivial silly heart -
broken and worthless -
that I bought in the market.
And this that tastes
delicious on your tongue –
a poem dripping my blood.


Oru Pachakakkurippu

- Sugatha Kumari
cheruthaay kkotthikkotthi
nuRukkiyedukkuka
NiRayekkaNNeeruppu veezhtthi
yonniLakkuka
nishphalakrOthatthinte
yerivum veeRum chERkka
kayppezhumapamaanaatthinte
lajjayum chaali
ccuLchhodil thiLappiccu vaanguka
athin mumbo
ritthirparihaasam thaaLikka,
oru nuLLu
prEmatthin madhurima
mEmbodi thookikkOri
yOmane, viLambuka,
ninte yooNinnu nannaam.
sasyBOjiyenno nee?
saaramillithu there
nissaaramoru veRum hridhayam
kEdundalpam
vilayillathekiTTi
chandhayalninnum, naavi
laliyunnathO? chOrayi
littu kavithayaam

- Translated by Joanna Maria Trzeciak

After every war
someone must clean up.
No sort of orderliness
happens by itself.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the roads
so that the wagons full of corpses
can get through.

Someone has to wade through
the slime and ashes,
the couch springs,
the glass splinters
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a beam
to support a wall,
someone must glaze a window
and hang the door on hinges.

This is not photogenic
and takes years.
All the cameras have already driven off
to another war.

The bridges have to be built again
and the station, too.
Sleeves will be in tatters
from being rolled up. Someone with mop in hand
still remembers how it was.
Someone is listening,
nodding with a head not torn off.
But already people are
beginning to congregate,
who will be bored by all this.

From time to time someone must still
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it to the garbage dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as much as nothing.

In the grass, which has grown over
the causes and effects,
someone must lie
with an stalk of grass in his teeth
and gaze at the clouds.

The original poem in Malayalam is by Sugatha Kumari

Hemophilia
Even the tiniest wound
starts to bleed,
and blood flows relentlessly
unceasing, unclotting
draining away one’s life.
There exists such an illness
though it’s name I know not.
Nor its cure.
I only know that
even the smallest wound
should be avoided.
But how?
On these roads
strewn with thorns,
shards of glass and nails -
how will one afflicted
and barefooted
walk?
How’ll she walk these paths
full of deep potholes
dug with sharp tools -
and covered up
to trip the unsuspecting.
How can one walk
these poorly-lit roads
when those with
smiling daggers,
venomous teeth
and long nails
guard these paths?
How’ll I walk alone?
Can’t avoid walking;
can’t escape writhing
in the pain of these wounds.
Once it starts to bleed
there is no stopping
this dreadful illness -
a disease I understand,
for my heart is afflicted thus.
Even for the smallest wound,
a hundred
little and large
memories
slowly gush
and then rush out.
It’s a bleeding that won’t cease
won’t coagulate.
Old, timeworn memories
that I had buried
deep in the earth
suddenly spring to life
and gush out.
Even as my heart writhes
and pleads ‘No no,’
and tries to hold them back,
they cannot be stopped.
Is there no cure for this illness-
no stopping this unceasing flow
of painful memories?
Is there no cure, I ask.
Someone answers,
‘There is one cure -
the warm ashes
from your cremation.’

Malayalam version

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.