Maa
People, places, things
I do not know how I remember
I remember summers by the smell of mangoes
I remember springs by the smell of flowers
I was born on the twenty-second day of Srabon
The fourth month of the Bangla calendar
I remember grief by the smell of rain.
In the summertime,
My mother cuts me a plate full of ripe mangoes
She brings it to my room
Hoping I would talk to her.
My mother, a woman in her late fifties
Leans on my wooden doorframe
As I stare into her ageing eyes.
Her hair, whiter than the winter morning fog
Freckles scattered across her flushed cheeks
Like constellations in the Milky Way
Her bone-weary gait, like a soldier awaiting to return home
I wonder if she was always my mother
Was she born to be my mother?
Who was she when she was twenty-three and young?
Were her eyes always filled with worldly dilemmas and what to cook for dinner?
Has it ever sparkled like stars after a new moon?
Did she ever cut herself a plate full of mangoes?
What were the things she worried about before she was my mother?
Did she find me in a dream?
Begged God to send me her way?
I stare at my mother, a woman in her late fifties
My mind starts to wonder yet again,
Who am I?
Who will I be at fifty-six?
Was I born to be your daughter, mother?
Will I always be your daughter, mother?
People, places, things
I do not know how I remember
I remember my mother by her soft, and warm hands
Her orna that smells like my entire life
And love, by a plate full of ripe mangoes.
Jannatul Naeem Tasmiah is a student of English Literature at Jahangirnagar University.
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