I embellish my arms with bangles

As thick as two strands of hair.

Their raucous cackles

Suffuse the tepid air.

 

Air that's fragrant with spices

I add to my copper pots. 

Air whose redolence

Reminds me of what I've lost.

 

The dough that I mould

Sans a scintilla of strain,

Boasts imprints of my knuckles manifold, 

Knuckles on which those kisses still linger, soft and faint.

 

As flames gently lick my flatbreads

And simmer my golden-brown curries,

The disdain of my crockery I sense,

Disdain that feels almost like a mockery.

 

But my cheeks refuse to be heated

By anything that's not the soaring temperature

Of the sizzling food that fed

Bellies I'm worried might now be subjected to hunger.

 

But there's no reliable way of knowing.

I've heard they're in a better place,

Both the dead and the living.

But who's to say?

 

Is there any place better

Than my splendid dinner table?

Endowed with teeming pots, plates, pitchers,

My dinner table fed them brimful.

 

I still glance at the window,

I still take a gander at the door.

No, I'm not alone,

I still lay the table for four.

 

Shifa