For My Mother

You had kissed me goodbye 

A year back

My forehead is still moist with it

But this time I come to 'collect' you

The man at the mortuary breathes 

A long deep sigh on the keys

Ready to open you to me

The key turns awry in the tiny hole of time 

Like the sudden emergence 

Of a friend's face at the gate

There you are, 

Draped in your favourite dress 

A maroon sari

No, 'draped' is not the right word

'Shrouded'

You are shrouded by it

Passivity has finally claimed you

I touch your still warm forehead

There is a touch of pain on your face  

The lines on it remind me of your contorted face 

How you frightened me by making that face 

In those half-open hours of the night 

The only difference now:

The face simply 'is', and no need for 'making' it anymore

The face is where you are for me

Facing all odds as always 

Rest in my face from now on

Look, I have had two cuts while shaving

They are right beneath my nose 

On both sides

I have put two cotton balls there 

With some Dettol in them 

As I watch myself thus in mirror 

I remember the cotton balls 

In your nose 

You had no more breath left 

And breath was all that was

Left with me 

No, I refuse to call you a 'body' here

Perhaps I have to write you like that

In some official document

But no, not here!

Not in a poem!

Poetry is the solitary breath passing through the cotton block

Deep into the hollows of the nose 

It does not know how to take death for granted!