Our mothers worked in
soot furnaces late into nights
until their skins became

reflections of the fire
before them.

They patted their blistered hands
with lavender oil and honey
before the morning began — yet again
they would disappear into their

small factories
like little glowworms
in the sun-streaked woods.

Our mothers chopped and cooked
pots of curry in the hours between.
They tied our hair up in petite buns
as their own so they would not

fall when we snaked around
the banyan tree or tugged at
its upturned roots.

They hung smoked lanterns
wrapped with black wires
against the brick walls.

Our mothers were jeweled
in nose pins and brass hoops
that weighed down their

thinning ears — they glinted
in the hot sun
like burnt sienna
on their ashen skins,

their bangled hands still chalked

with white carbon
off bundled lilies they wore in their hair
on another day.