Splayed fingertips cradle oil in their clasp, dripping
with remembrance—blotched, coconut. Amma ropes
my hair in bunches, sews each lock into place with
a touch of copra, tells me kanna, I wish I had your
curls—but I yearned for pin-straight, so thin it
could be folded into paper cranes. Swans drifting
in saccharine; my hair sunken as waves gush to the
scalp. A thousand follicles drowning until syllabic
remains break the surface and my body forgets to
breathe, curdles an accent in the larynx. She twists
ringlets into grapheme, says to me: Ammamma had
hair like you, gripping yet so fragile. One droplet laces
my strands, mourns the skin, unspools away from its
origin—a matrilineage in taproot. Notice how my
tangles are brittle like Amma’s voice, chafed in
English. How her hands combed down to split ends:
watch two become four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two,
my receding femininity splintered—a diaspora
of my mothers before these bathroom tiles.
Little black circles fallen to the floor.
Rishi Janakiraman is an Indian-American high school student who writes from North Carolina. His work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and he appears or is forthcoming in YWP, Chrysalis, and Eunoia Review, among others. A Top 15 Foyle Young Poet of the Year, he also reads for Polyphony Lit and enjoys listening to Fiona Apple.