I Take More Pictures Now

By Fathima Zayaan

I wish I took more photographs.

I wish I captured you in film instead of just watching.

If I had then I think I would be saner

my heart would crack a bit less

because I’d have your comforting presence even if they’re in frames.

I would stare at them over & over again, until

the lines on your forehead are etched on mine

until your knowing smile is the first smile in my memory

when I try to paint a face, or a lost home

until your brown eyes reflect in mine when I look in the mirror

until your guiding hands & bedtime stories are my divine messages.

I sat by your bed for a long time after you left.

Some people we love in a way we do not understan

duntil they’re gone & your words lump in your throat with their name when morning rolls

until you’re standing quietly at the station & you’re afraid

that your tongue will slip an “I miss you” when the rain come dancing down the roofs

like it did through our leaking roofs.

I wish I told you how much you’ve helped me

how your kindness is my divine message

& how my brain melts into my irrational heart

when I see other grandmothers who resemble you.

How I carefully copy your lettering into my books

to try and understand your venerable dialect.

Oh I am treading, treading softly on the grass

and braiding my hair without tying them

sewing buttons into old clothes

that no longer fit me but will fit somebody else

keeping fish aside for the cats and crows

lighting candles on the kitchen top in my mind when it rains—everything you taught me reflects

in my funny little life.

In the platter on my table every morning

I look for it — the ting of the tangerine sauce

that you served with soft porridge,

and the precise geometry of your sweets.

Oh, how you wove the coarsest wool into the softest table covers

how you forgave that which deserves no god-sent mercy

how you poured love into prayers.

I hold a funeral for you in my head

every year on the same day

and every time I am better, smarter, telling you my love

passing through our final hours together

smiling at your altar.

I am still trembling, but my eyes are closer to looking into your

sat each funeral.

May I search for your fragrance on your pillows?

on your flower printed shirts

on your gold laced shawls

in your notebooks of receipts?

What’s there to love if not for the melody of your tales?

What’s there to joy if not for your laughter and pranks?

What’s there to gold if not for your wrinkled hands adorning them?

What’s there to live for if not for a house with your prayers echoing?

The garden hibiscus inquires about you every time.

I try to answer but even after all this while

I have nothing to say.

People tell me I look like you, only sometimes

and these sometimes, I think of course I do,

I have stared at your photographs for so long. 

By Fathima Zayaan