The kitchen will always be blue,
the only open area here-
on your window, there will be blue paper-planes
still, shaken by the breeze that arrives
unexpectedly. There are cats in your dreams
cats on the walls, only the cheshire seems to be smiling
pointing to the direction of the old pathway in the wood
pinned to the wall
we eat cereal in Tupperware,
you apologize for the hospitality
as we look over the swans
breeding new hatches for the season
they will live here, over the pond we keep
calling a lake, for lack of better words
in second tongues- only we will fly
and call it a return
you and I are from other soil
we know it, little do people know
the blessing of not eating
out of Tupperware, of sleeping in self owned beds
there are times we borrow
grounds, kitchens
blue that will term us visitors
each time we return
I will go back, you tell me
I am meant to be, I answer you
even when you don't ask anything
you don't need the questioning.
The paper-planes are blue,
this kitchen is blue
we are here watching soft rain
in a week we will be gone
you to the directions of Matrbhumi,
and I to my Watan,
these are the motherlands
that we get to ourselves
no Tupperwares or make-shift tongues.
Matrbhumi: Bengali for motherland.
Watan: Arabic for homeland.
This poem is for my Bengali friend S. B.