I.

Achamma¹’s speech is unbound by time —
she draws past tense into the present,
habits of history become actions
yet to happen in English.
Maybe this is why I haven’t yet cried:
she points with her chin
to the empty chair beside her,
hands preoccupied with rice,
and says something about how Achachan² “loves”
this particular dish: spicy baingan³ or rich kofta⁴
or sugar in his curd.
I almost believe he will emerge
from the bedroom, late for lunch again,
stroll around the table and take his seat,
sunlight haloing his silver hair.

II.

Now he is gone, and Achamma’s tongue is lovingly overcome
with Malayalam at the breakfast table. My father responds in English,
gifting me puzzle pieces to fit into the jigsaw conversation.

My confusion is infantile; I try to distinguish the single stream of sound,
words blending to blur, bending around dry interjections of English.
She switches for my benefit, sudden as a river pitching into waterfall,

rushing just as easily into the tail-end of a story whose overture
flew over my bhasha⁵-parched head. My mouth falls open, at a loss
in sudden familiarity, swimming upstream for clarity.

She ends her tale with a smile, leaving me to flounder,
fish-lipped, at the holes in my knowledge. I confess
Achamma, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

She misunderstands — no, no how can you know? You weren’t born
at that time — giggles at my foolishness, and I join, awed
by the unexpected joy of our disconnect; laughing
at our beautiful mutual mistake.

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