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Mom would come home from every church
reception with one cookie, wrapped in a napkin,
in her purse, only for me. Last night, for the first time,
I tried this trick too. It’s not that we couldn’t stop
and buy you an entire box of cookies, on any given day. It’s that
we don’t. And in thirty years you may imagine me
standing among the grown-ups and the chatter
of super storms, job losses and preschools, thinking
instead for a moment of you. You and the dance you would do,
when handed one shortbread cookie with a cut-out heart
of shining red raspberry jam. You and the dance
you would do, hands in the air, hips swaying, Thank you, Amma,
Thank you, Amma, as you bit into the delight
of one childhood Tuesday evening. Stopping, only to search
my face, to decipher, whether I came home with anything more.
Poem used with permission. This poem first appeared in print in Sunu P. Chandy’s poetry collection My Dear Comrades (Regal House, 2023).