An old hindu belief declares that there are 5 gods in your stomach. On the day I choose to fast, my mother texts me another shibboleth. Marry a man who can make a saffron phirni from the scratch. Someone with hands like the cool mud of refrigerated Indian clay cups. Eyelash curled into tiny ribbons of almond skin. I watch her grate coconut for the curry mix. Her fingers mimic the slender bittersweet of new neem leaves. My gaze is a vulgar sybarite. Lecherous with the gusto of garam masala. She averts, smirks; blinks an iris-shuffle of nigella seeds. My mother wants me settled. Dust of domesticity. A puppy the size of an easy bonsai, kitchen gardens pregnant with egg yolk lemons, tomatoes the tint of London buses. My mother wants me to wife myself; get tethered, owned. Someone’s mint cool body leafing me to sleep. I keep the phone back on the flaked granite. The blonde American woman in my kitchen with her muslin-curd skin wants to know if curcumin & turmeric are different and which one do we call “haldi”. I tell her yes & no. I tell her I don’t want jaundiced food so she can stave off the “haldi”. I try to pin the basil stalk of her shadow under my foot. I remind her that she’d only ever be any good for me if she learned how to make a saffron phirni from the scratch. The stove hisses its agreement in a sputtering of blue agave flames.
Phirni – a popular Indian dessert
Haldi – hindi/urdu for turmeric
Scherezade Siobhan is a psychologist, writer, and the maker of world's finest Spanish omelettes. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in tNY.Press, Bluestem Magazine, Black & BLUE Writing, Cordite Poetry Review, The Nervous Breakdown, Electric Cereal, Queenmobs, Potluck, Fruita Pulp, DIAGRAM, Wasafiri & others. Her first poetry collection Bone Tongue was published by Thought Catalog Books in 2015. She can be found squeeing about small furry animals, football (the proper kind), & neuroscience at viperslang or @zaharaesque.
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