The Woman with a Baby

Sukrita Kumar

Lilacs and tulips sprouting
From the slants of her eyes 
Her yellow face 
shimmering in white sunlight
Her body, a luminescent garden

Life within life dancing on
Feather feet
The rising belly, a tight sponge
Puffed into lightness

Her hands going in circles
Caressing the baby inside,
On the cozy pathway  
Whispering history in Portuguese,

Lingering pasts
In the ruins of the fortress 
at Macau, 
Pasts hanging with roots
from old branches 
of Banyan trees; 

Whiffs of future blowing 
from the citadel of the present, 
Singing the song of her body
The woman walked 
Through smoke and dust 

Our eyes met,
Chinese with Indian,  
Entwined in maternity
Not mediated by English;

Tiny movements rising
in our bellies, 
fish churning in the ocean,
birds flapping wings through the skies
and eyelids, drooping and batting heavy,
to enter 
or exit the bliss of sleep.