Cross Fertilization

by Preeti Vangani

Ali Kazal

My mother’s wig lived longer than what killed her. When she died, I fixed her consolation-hair onto my head. Then buried my head into her cupboard to sniff her on her clothes. All I got was naphthalene and perfect folds. Once again, I had encountered her care before her. Her, as in the woman who snipped off the loose ends of threads so close, the alteration would never show.

I too tried repairing myself by sewing grief into a pattern. But grief, I learnt, isn’t as much a design as it is a seam. It is what holds me now not my mother’s hand. Slipping into mine seconds before the traffic light turned red. I believed my memories of her would scatter with time. Instead, in the winter of my mind they take root like seeds I did not sow. Look, they say, even the dead can grow.

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Preeti Vangani is an Indian poet & personal essayist. Born and raised in Mumbai, she is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions), her first book of poems (selected as the winner of RL India Poetry Prize). Her work has been published in BOAAT, Gulf Coast, and Threepenny Review, among other journals. She is the Poetry Editor for Glass Journal, a Poet Mentor at Youth Speaks and holds an MFA (Writing) from University of San Francisco.