Poetry by Jessica (Tyner) Mehta
You told me you looked like your father,
your brother like your mother,
but that’s not what I saw in the Mumbai tea house–
what everyone told you was wrong,
a lie from their eyes. Your mother
engulfs you both, in the cacao black
eyes and teeth crowded as a morning train.
Your father, he’s slipped into your innards,
entrenched in your turned down chin,
arms frozen across chest, the cold set
of your jaw, the distance of your aura.
Your father doesn’t scare me
because all I see is you. You in thirty years,
the you of our past, over-seasoning tradition
and fear with barricades.
I broke them down once,
I can do it again, they all doubt me
and therein lies my power. It’s in my tiny bones,
the reach of my hair, the fray
of my lashes. You know my stubbornness
is thicker than yours, my desire burns brighter
than all the fireworks of Diwali
and your father—the poor man
will see me one day
just as you do.
Jessica (Tyner) Mehta is a multi-award-winning Aniyunwiya, Two-Spirit, queer, interdisciplinary poet and artist. She is currently preparing for her Fulbright Senior Scholar award and her post-doctoral fellowship as the 2022 Forecast Change Lab fellow.
