OHONA ANJUM JUI

One of these days, you will lose one or two limbs

to the slow erosion of years, the same silence

that took Grandfather’s stories mid-sentence.

There will not be a neighbour left to eavesdrop

on our arguments over Father’s stubborn land,

our hysterical laughter shaking the old wood table,

our boring complaints

of parents, aunts kids, generational debt, and leftover sweets.

Not a soul to recall how Mother’s voice, frayed as prayer,

would stitch the dusk back together.

There will not be a tree standing.

No guava branch to scratch the roof in a monsoon,

no shade where your daughter took her first steps.

You won’t have your broom, the one you bound from coconut leaves,

to sweep the dust of our name from this cracked threshold.

My death will not be news of terror,

but a letter expected early, and came late.

The final stamp on a correspondence of worn-out silences.

You will journey then, with an unknown woman on an exhausted donkey’s back,

through landscapes where only the wind answers.

You will ask the empty road, unknowingly, where to go?

For the empire of our past is just those same leaves

you swept from our backyard each evening

figs, neem, and ash

scattered beyond all recollection.

Our anthem of solitude was never sung; it hummed

in the space between us as we shelled peas for dinner,

a vibration in the heart not from love, not from fear,

not from the “I” that once held you close in the dark.

But listen. In closing, you will not merely remember

that these battles are bigger than you.

You will wear that knowing, like the threadbare shawl

Gentle woman embroidered with cranes, now loose at the hem.

They are of life, yes, but carved specifically for you

the heirloom you wore without choice,

the dust of our courtyard you inhaled into your very bones,

the half-remembered lullaby Sister sang you

to the other side of fear.

And when you finally look out, you will see

a new world built on the weary bones of your mother, father, sister, brother,

and stubborn light filtering through their absence.

You will realize the battle itself was,

the only thing that could truly give: the quietness of the scar.

Then you will plant your one good hand in the earth,

not thinking of poetry,

but making a song of the silence,

and calling it home.

Ohona Anjum writes, rhymes, and studies English literature.