after Fiona Lu
My mother gathers electric starlight
and sows them across the balcony.
Plunge into soil, leave behind a flame.
The same fingers snap the necks of garlic bulbs,
unravel each layer of dead white skin,
over and over again. My mother has boxes.
Black carrot scars, dried spinach leaves,
garlic scales, and crushed eggshells.
On weekends she puts them together
and feeds her jasmines and tomatoes.
Sometimes, she touches my forehead
just to leave behind streaks of wet mud.
When I become a mother, I too shall
collect dead little things
and birth life out of them.
Suchita Senthil Kumar is a writer creating chaos from Bengaluru, India. Her work has been published in Live Wire India, Shot Glass Journal and Honey Literary among others. When not writing, she can be found reading submissions for Frontier Poetry. She makes life decisions asking herself one question: Will Sirius Black be proud?