“Kymopoeia” by Tina Pocha
They cut my breasts off. They want me to love, but they cut my breasts off.
They gave me one earring. How can I be fair with just one earring?
They say smile. I smile. They say smile. I smile. They say you are not smiling. I say, this is my smile.
My son thinks I love his brother more.
But I tell the Ayah to draw his bath and lay out his clothes.
My son thinks I love his brother more.
But I sent him to the best schools.
My son thinks I love his brother more.
I do. I love his brother more.
My husband left me with boxes of tea and grandfather clocks.
I stir and wind, stir and wind.
My husband left me with land and tenants.
I pay his debts. I pay his debts.
My husband left me my sarees and jewels.
I take them out. I wipe them clean. No daughters. No daughters.
I am cold.
I am cold.
You know why I am cold.
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Tina Pocha Artist Statement:
Born and raised in Bombay, India, to a Hindu mother and a Zoroastrian father, I am the quintessential
outsider—neither of nor from any single place or culture, not mainstream nor maverick, ever feeling my
way around people and situations that seem, at once, vaguely (impalpably) familiar yet never quite
home. “Pick one!” they told me, “You can’t be both.” Not grown up and child. Not scientist and artist.
Not tender and resilient. I lived my life outside their boxes, in the interstices between what they knew
and what I was, bracing myself against their cardboard walls. So I left. Left the limitations, left the
misogyny, left the muzzle behind and traveled the world to swim hither and thither, not always
upstream, but swimming, nonetheless, rarely floating, and more recently, happily, writing about these
adventures (less Don Quixote, more Accidental Tourist), in verse.
