ma
To the woman who loved
what had not yet become, making promises
with unfolding fabric:
We shared skin, but from you I grew into
my own — an inherited thing
inhabited, but never out
grown.
You hollowed a home
within yourself, doorways
forged from flesh, walls
shifting soundlessly
with each passing breath.
There is a forever in the spaces
between you and I — it stares back
at the two of us, a daughter’s love
opening its luminous eyes
for the first time.
—-
Kanchan Naik is a junior at The Quarry Lane School in Dublin, CA. Aside from being the Youth Editor at India Currents, she is the Editor-in-Chief of her school’s news-zine The Roar. She is also the Teen Poet Laureate of Pleasanton and uses her role to spread a love of poetry in her community.
