people of determination

Dipti Anand Oct 22, 2022

*Walking home from school, outskirts of Manchikere, 2006. From the series, A Certain Grace, The Sidi: Indians of African Descent. Photograph courtesy Ketaki Sheth and PHOTOINK.*

eggs for breakfast
just nameless eggs
with untamed yolks
flailing into
what could be butter, but isn’t,
teethed by a upend smile
screaming into
what could be sky, but isn’t.
here are
only
phantom fingers
writing
in a vocabulary of light,
leaves running milky chances
  turning askance
and back
        always back
        to tree
        starfish
        cosmic dust,
and ahead
surely
to more eggs
people
and dinner time.
she will
        suddenly
speak their names
in different tongues,
she will crack them
how she likes.