Salma (b.1968) is a writer of Tamil poetry and fiction, activist and politician. She has published three volumes of Tamil poetry: Oru Malaiyum Innoru Malaiyum (An Evening and Another Evening), Pachai Devaidai (Green Angels) and Thanumanaval (A Woman Become Herself). She is also the author of two novels and a collection of short stories. All three have been published in English translation to wide acclaim. Salma’s writings have won national and international recognition. She was the recipient of the fourth Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia award for poetry in 2019.
Contract
My sister hisses at me in anger
what my mother whispers tactfully:
that all failures
on the conjugal bed
are mine alone.
The first words I hear
every night in the bedroom:
‘What’ll it be tonight?’
These are, most often,
the final words too.
A finger points to whorish barter.
Upon the air of timorous nights, awaiting redemption
from ten million shimmering stars,
float words of wise counsel.
Unable to feed its young,
the cat bawls like a child,
and its wail
seizes my heart.
You, too,
must have your complaints.
My stand, though,
has been made clear
by time and history.
To receive
a little of your love,
dreary though it might be –
To fulfil
my duties
as the mother of your child –
To have you bring
sanitary towels and contraceptives
from the outside world;
and to seek more such petty favours –
To order you around a bit,
if I could –
To assert a little
of my authority –
My vagina opens,
knowing all that it should.
Notes on a Fatality - 1
On the day he was killed,
the rain was pouring down
with profound compassion.
Solitude of the years to come
settles on the skin
of the murdered man’s wife.
A few kin in whom
the grief has already receded, begin
to cook a special meal
for the visiting mourners.
The bereavement, which had not
registered strongly with anyone,
pervades the crowd, infesting
the air like clandestine news.
To believe that he would
return someday
from a nameless town
reassures the children.
As the ripple of voices
confirms that, before dawn,
even the residual cries of lament
will dry up overnight
like puddles of rainwater,
his death
occurs yet again—in me
Also see:
Salma’s poems in Poetry International (2006)
The Universe in the Closet: Interview with Salma in Poetry International (2006)
23 poems in Salma: Filming a Poet in Her Village by Kim Longinotto and Rajathi Salma (2013)
Salma’s poems in Scroll.in (2021)
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