by Saumya R. Kedia
after "Having a Coke With You" by Frank O’Hara
Is even more fun than going to Bombay sans return ticket or being late on a deadline again, or forgetting our belongings but never giving up the hope that they will return to us. Partly because in your banana shirt you look like a modern mermaid who has discovered the inanity of clothes, partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for ramen, partly because of Sonipat skies and their continuous sunset, partly because of our private eye rolls that reveal more secrets than they keep, it is hard to believe when I’m with you that other people are not as transparent ergo allowing light through isn’t a function of personhood. In the mess lawns, at five o’ clock, we whisper as if the red bricks have cameras for cement, photographs have face recognition…and I wonder why in the world did we as a species want to be seen so badly. I look at you and thank god that you are not a photograph. The photos of our mothers are enough. We come visit them together. And the fact that you dance so freely after a glass of gin and tonic more or less takes care of rhythms and the fact that you nap on the grass with me ensures that the ginger lemon honey chai has been drunk, the strawberries well-eaten, and the metre sung. Behind the Dhaba, I never think of my mother in her bony frame, faded blue denim pants with contrast stitching matching her t-shirt, and brown belt, and what good does all the research do when she couldn’t go to fashion college because of tuberculosis and an overprotective father. Or for that matter the red bricks who wish to be sky blue, which is why I want to tell you how grateful I am.
Saumya Kedia is a writer from Mumbai, India. She is finishing work on her first manuscript of poems. You can find her @saumyakedia1 on Twitter.
