One Wednesday in August, I decide to haiku and eulogize my mother. Not at the same time, of course. I could never fit a haiku around my Ma. 17 syllables would be far too many for her euphony. Ghrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrr was the only sound she made; even before she metamorphosed into a sewing machine.
A monarch butterfly—wide winged sunset, like the fake Tiffany lamp Ma dusted every Saturday, flits like poetry. I count the syllables for monarch. Two. One more than butterfly. Ma did everything precisely, towed the line to the tee. I’d follow her from chore to chore. She cooked cleaned swept gardened cooked cleaned swept gardened…
ghrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrr.
She’s adjusted so well with the family—grannies, aunties, neighbours chorused whenever they came home for feasts or festivals.
I’d look up to see if their compliments dented my Ma’s silence just a smidgen, maybe a smile or something. Nothing. Ma brought out dishes set the table served cleared washed up read me her favourite Beauty and the Beast which became my favourite before tucking me in. Ma read out words when we were alone. I try to recall if she used any of her own, but no matter how deep I dive, I only hear…
ghrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrrr ghrrrrrrr.
Sometimes, when I hugged her as she bent to kiss my forehead, smelling of sandalwood and ghee, she’d sound like honeybees, humming silently like dust diamonds, suspended weightless in the blade of light that entered my room through the sliver my Ma left un-shut. Ma and I disliked/were afraid of slamming doors, darkening rooms.
Muddy (two syllables) boot prints on the veranda floor. Big like Yeti’s. My father’s. One summer, I saw a documentary on TV. A huge footprint dented in snow; an absence filling the screen. Ever since then, I’d pretend my father was Yeti, endangered not dangerous.
A pale moon (one syllable like Ma) trembled in the pale light of the morning she went missing. The house was the noisiest it had ever been. I was drowsy from Phenergan Ma gave me every night before she kissed me, before she left the door un-shut just a morsel. Before Yeti’s return.
She’s done such a good job with you. Look how well you’ve turned out. Robust at the seams. Quiet. Loyal. Sturdy—my grandparents, aunties, uncles, extended family chirped like mynah birds and patted me on my back and brought me my favourite gulab jamun.
This was a few weeks after Ma went missing. It’s the temper. He can’t help it…not his fault…if you look at it—they talked about Yeti for days years weeks.
Every night, I dream the same dream. It goes like this… Ma is tucking me in when Yeti appears, big, strong, angry. My eyelids are heavy, but I can see his blurry, burly outline scooping up dust bunnies from the blade of light, gulping them down greedily, hungrily and telling me to not be like Ma. Not to fear the dark.
It’s nothing. Look at me. Be like me —Yeti is crying out so loudly I can’t hear him.
I see his big mouth opening like a white cave, like a storm and I shut my eyes tighter in my sleep. Ma! Ma! Where’s my Ma? I dream of shouting. But I hear no sound.
Yeti is shaking me. I know it’s him. His hands are big like blankets. Wake up. Open your eyes — His voice is soft like clouds, like snow. Drowsy and confused, I scrunch my eyes nose face tighter, real tight, shut. Wake up—booms a hurricane.
I peep. I see Yeti holding my Ma like Ma used to hold me whenever I was sick or pretended to be too sleepy to walk back from the car when we got home after a day at the park. She’d carry me in her arms like Yeti is carrying her now. Ma is pretending to be asleep, like me. Still.
I keep watching Yeti’s back till it’s hollow like the TV screen. Don’t make a sound Ma, I tell her telepathically. Play dead. Play dead. That’s the way to trick bears, I saw it on TV. Yetis are bears; scientists dismantled the myth on a Wednesday, I tell her. But I can hear her ghrrrrrr, ghrrrrrr, ghrrrrrr all the way to snowy Himalayan peaks.
Monarch butterfly
flutters; silent muddy boots
solitary moon
I’m 21. A poet. My therapist thinks haiku suit me. He thinks I’m a man of few words.