Birds of a Feather
you declare loudly that
my hair looks like a nest
maa is unleashing heat
on her head again and again
and I think of a long curly
line of women picking strands
aggressively brushing out her waves
demanding they turn into still water
from their head to pass down
to me so that whenever I look
It smells like burning but she is
smiling wider with each step
in the mirror it feels like a home
that i can grow old in
when she is done I know this much:
maa does not like looking like me
Khushi Bajaj (she/her) is a multilingual poet and writer from Lucknow, India. Her work has previously been published by Penguin Random House, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Feminism in India, and more. She has won the international Briefly Write Poetry Prize, and been highly commended for the Disabled Poets Prize and the erbacce-prize. Her debut chapbook ‘The Girl Who Ate Words’ is forthcoming with Parlyaree Press.