SLEEPING AT MY MOTHER’S HOUSE

A southern door opens to a field of late 

afternoons and early evenings. Unnamed 

trees barcode the field and its afternoon-evenings. 

The trees have survived thunderstorms, 

development plans, the deserting of the eyes 

that once beheld them with a certain loving 

nonchalance. On the other side of the door, 

the face of the room has changed, the length 

separating the inside and outside, shrunk. 

The field persists as those eyes return 

to search it for scraps of semi-forgotten 

afternoons. Boys still come to play cricket 

as their fathers did football. Wedding shamianas 

enwrap the field on loud, suffocating evenings 

even now. After dusty, stormy meltdowns 

that turn monsoons into a moody toddler, 

a downpour washes the field into quietude. 

Inside, on my mother’s bed, I’m lulled to sleep 

as if I was never gone for years and hadn’t pined 

for a view of that playground like a girl banished 

from her home. 

When I wake up, the drizzle’s on my skin. My eyes.