Kaikeiyi (Draft IV)

The king of Ayodhya, Dashranata, wants to crown one of his son’s Rama as king of Ayodhya. However one of his wives, Kaikeyi, has her mind “poisoned” against Rama and his mother Kausalya and seeks to displace them in favor of her and her son. Many years prior to this she had saved the life of the king and been granted two boons- she claims them now to have Rama disinherited and her son Bharat installed as king.

Mother may I?

Son you shall.

*

patrimony is always an uncertain proposition,

lineage only identifiable in

the folds of a silk sari and the smooth slide of golden bangles

Counterpoint to the swath of sweat clinging to your distended sides

Chanting furiously through the

Wet pains of contractions

A portion of divinity wrung out in every gasping breath

*

A mother’s love for her child is idolatry,

(Not the crimson spotted handkerchief called martyrdom)

Fear not for the curves of meat

Bathe the boy in the milk

Of your regard

There is no mother’s love that is

Yielding, that does not cut both ways

Viciously.

His limpid boyhood will be eclipsed by the

transcendent fury of his ascension

*

For love of sons we make

Enemies of men

Motherhood is a strange armor

And we wear it, ceaseless

Strapped to the legs to

Keep us sinking.

Mothers and martyrs

The love that lets itself be

Wounded must be terrifying

Tyrannical, despotic in

Standing and striding through a hail of arrows

Risking the perfumed cascade of

Twilight hours to secure my

Progeny, is another word for sacrifice

That contains all the elements of injury:

Scar, fire