The women in my family

can identify one another from the back.

Not the face—

the forward angle of the neck,

as if listening for danger

inside another room.

At weddings, they stand over steaming vats

in embroidered silk,

stirring cardamom into milk

while the men argue history loudly

from the other side of the wall.

Oil thickens the air.

I learned

that femininity was partly acoustic.

A good woman

could move through a room

without disturbing its temperature.

The body learns.

Jaw first. Then the diaphragm.

Then the muscles around the eyes

that must learn to hold expression

at a survivable angle.

During an argument,

my mother sliced cilantro so precisely

the knife never struck the board.

Only the wet sound

of cilantro splitting.

Outside, evening kirtan drifted faintly

through the open kitchen window.

No one paused cutting.

At her funeral I recognized the women

by the way they folded dupattas after crying.

Steel thalis arrived from neighboring houses.

Rice steamed the windows opaque.

Someone adjusted the marigolds with shaking hands.

In the kitchen,

an aunt rinsed blood from her cut thumb

beneath cold water without looking down, then dried the plates.

I watched her press each dish

into the dark cupboard.

Partly Acoustic

Mother Tongue