Written piece
Names
Smruti Swarupa Mahapatra
India
About this piece
Drawing a parallel between the treatment of cows and women in the Indian Hindu society, the poem explores how sacred beings are worshipped, used, neglected and controlled at once.
Horns combed back,
eyes flicking off flies,
jaw grinding a bucket
of skins and stems.
Yesterday's marigolds
cling to her lips.
Offerings to dead photographs
ferment in her gut.
By dawn
the warm remainder returns,
her yield
is gathered as sacred.
Touched for luck,
avoided for smell,
stands where tied—
flies drinking from the corners
of her eyes.
Occasionally adorned.
Occasionally struck.
Boys taught to call her holy
grow up to fix her price.
At dusk the rope loosens
just enough for the trash heap.
Nosing through wilted garlands,
she licks ghee off newspaper gods.
By morning
she stands where tied —
Chewing. Swallowing. Called mother.