LETITIA JIJU
ഓളങ്ങള് (Olangal)
Once you’d kissed me, I dashed into each morning,
calamitous. Knowing as a stone
skipped — grazing the first river of my body.
That was my language, then. Rivers
and how to contain
the rumor of your hands.
Memory a lotus leaf to carry
home your gaze
bedewing my center.
A fish snuck in. It flapped against the dark leaf of my belly
before rippling into the world.
You asked me what it was. I swam upward and bit your lip.
You knew.
On the tail end of dusk’s straw-mouth, we lay
thatched by grasshopper wing and sandhya deepam
lit in the distant huts of our eyes. Somewhere,
an elephant broke its fetters. Your thumb stroked mine.
Language slicked oil dripping off
evening’s wick smoothing baby hairs
and scrambled back inside.
A child-god stayed up
wiping moon-glass clean. It misted up again, like a whisper.
Or desire.
I couldn’t tell. I had already named the rivers after you.
I couldn’t tell മദം from മതം
even as a fish floated up
-side down.
ഓളങ്ങള് (olangal): waves
മദം (madham): musth, rut
മതം (matham): religion
Letitia Jiju is an Indian poet who through her work explores the intermingling of mother tongue, religion & generational trauma. Her poems have appeared/are forthcoming in trampset, ANMLY, The Lumiere Review, Moist Poetry Journal and elsewhere. She reads poetry for Psaltery & Lyre. Find her on Instagram/Twitter @eaturlettuce.