I was born when the air was pregnant
Ripe like a fruit on the verge of bursting
spitting black seeds into the fertile earth.
Then Herod, as my parents knew him
smelt my skin like a dog in heat.
Before I spelled ami, baba, ma, he had already
slipped the iron manacles of a bounty on my head.
and the old books wouldn't agree, to be honest
about specifics- some mumbo-jumbo on stars (But how many stars can you see,
sweating on a state bus, between Jamalpur and Kolkata?)
that is to say, there may or may not have been the proverbial journey of a hundred thousand feet Did you know, we ran out of seating in my concrete manger,
glistening with May sweat and the tacky odor of new paint,
Did you know, there were three kings in the master bedroom–
if you can believe my mother on such issues; They gave us corded bamboo fans and Mortein coils,
to keep the power-cut mosquitoes away
from baby blood, from fresh milk-fed meat.
Did you know: I did not hear a single angel sing the story of my birth to a listening ear,
I may be God's daughter, but I was no messiah

Did you know,
It was silence that shaped my first coming into earth,
It is silence, deadblack, deafening, that has been my companion since.