Mona Sheth
To My Mother on Her Birthday
My mother comes from a place called Kolkata,
Kalikshetra, the locals say, "the place of Kali,"
Kali who spits ruby fire, who sits astride a tiger.
Kali who always holds in one of her ten arms
a dagger, could not hold a candle to my mother,
who holds in her hand the phone, her loving
dance companion, as she demands justice
from a credit card company. My mother
scoffs at the ennui of middle America.
She pushed every boundary, but then
in America, a woman with the name
Sunanda Bahungana Sheth (fair skin or not)
would have had to push-
In the recesses of the hot, church-crying South,
she watched every man in her life
fly off to the mysterious land of opportunity,
and kept verses of Tagore and Wordsworth
locked in her warrior's chest. My mother
is stronger than a soap opera heartbreak
that has run for fifty-four seasons.
My mother is the one being from whom I hid nothing;
but then you cannot hide, from one who carried you
before you were "you"; whose iron organs
surrounded and nourished you. Enfolded you.
_ _
Mona Sheth grew up in East Tennessee, and graduated from the law school at American University. She lives in Washington D.C. and has worked as an advocate for clean energy. When she isn't spouting literary quotes to friends and strangers, she serves as a co-executive director for an education non-profit, Friends of Seva.
>> Back to Issue 20, 2017 |