On Marriage
BY SARAH FATHIMA MOHAMMED
Next to the window
in the kitchen, my mother thins
my hair into a bun
of smoke, smears cooking oil
under my eyes. In this home
we aren’t supposed to be beautiful,
just enough. With longing
fingers, I trace her small self,
her figure sagging
in a thin cotton slip, instead
of looking at my own body. I’m scared
of understanding what I have become.
Long ago, I would watch
my mother undress and dress
every morning
while I thought about
what a woman must hold beyond
her burka, what part of the body
remains with her. She never stopped me
from looking but also never told me
why red pools
between our thighs each month,
why we needed to stay
home while my father ran
barefoot in the rain.
In the end, we are daughters
who know
only what our mothers have taught
us. We step
into our black burkas:
in front of men, our bodies
are drenched in silk, blooming
and ancient. For the first time, I leave
the kitchen, my mother coiling close behind
to meet the gaze of my father. Before this
I have seen him twice, from a distance.
Behind my back my fingers
scrabble. I want to touch
the knuckles of the man
who made me, but I am simply
an investment, rupees given
for my leaving. I wonder
how long daughter has meant
dowry. And another man, I name him
husband: yellow-toothed, dark
skin like mine. When I leave
to go home
with him, he puts a finger over
my shut mouth, as if checking
for a pulse. My mouth
is not mine anymore.
It is a door unworthy of opening.
There is a reason why
women in our family have never learned
the word in our language for love,
only the word for listen.
