The pink dogwood buds pop on green branch.In St. Peters church: beneath the Lucite cross,from his snowy mountain, rajastic in white,Father Conri gives a shining sermonon “the many evils of women.” Some kindof joke. It’s Mother’s Day for God’s sake.My mother, Queen of my Cosmos, sits square-jawed, knuckles hard. My sisters and I sitlike painted dolls that fit inside her.He speaks: Eve—as all Women—we know isresponsible for sin, for sickness, for death.
Some 8,000 or so miles from here,in a temple orange with marigoldsgirls my age chant: God Is Mother,Praise Devi! With her three eyes, ten faces,eight bladed weapons, with blue jeweledornaments on her many fingered limbs.Devi who abides in all beings, praiseDevi who the men call when they have lostall.
Devi is unknown to me at 8I find Her at 22, in chants prayed in the basement of a temple, on wetwhite streets of London. Where doctors of brain—my mind to them a boring cipher, ask Whydo you hate yourself? Chart words: “Patient refusesto eat.” An ocean apart, my mother’s voicein voicemail. I erase. Oh Devi!Mathatma! Goddess of Volition.Some seven hundred verses daily said,Nourishing as my grandmother’s chicken stew-we cannot eat. As I am 8 and we are in the churchstill. The cross sways with Conri’s breath.He quotes Saint Magnus, beloved by the church:With women we must all be on guard. In evil and perverse doings, woman acts slyer than man. My mother’s hard jaw creaks.A freckle bounces on the side of her cheek.Father Conri is winning. Words leave darkchapels in our flesh. He has wrested lifefrom the gods, feeds us sickness in a cup.
Oh Devi! Bring your face, in red huelike the rising moon. Topple this man,grind him with your lion-teeth. My mother,a wax figure, my skin stuck to pew. Then!a golden light breaks above the altar,shimmers like fire, devoursthe cassock’s clanging bell.
My mother’s face alight. My sistersand I, glisten like Devi’s soft sword.Father Conri, finally the windexhausts. He sits with sighs beneath the cross.But we, the small women, we are shining bright.
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Illustration: Shreyaa Krritika Das