}} Phenyl Cleaner |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Phenyl Cleaner

Gary Sobers and Vivian Richards were my mother’s ideal men. And eventually, John, my father,
satisfied desire to run her fingers through kinky hair, bite on his jambalam lips and be enveloped
by rivers of black limbs. She even knapsacked her way through Bangalore-Bombay-Dubai-London-
Nairobi-Lagos-Kano-Ibadan to live without Boodle – her cocker spaniel – and without mango
pickle or dosas.

In every letter she wrote home, she asked about her Boodle. He was my first friend, bolstering me
while I read in the windowsill, a willing ear on long walks and a mouth for impromptu picnics. More
than my grandparents arguing if my eyes or dosa-chutney-tomato sauce combo seamlessly absolved
me into an apparition of my mother – it was Boodle nuzzling me that completely convinced them.

My mother after four years of living between Lagos-Kano-Ibadan (no one is sure, each letter came
differently addressed) returned skipping through her three homes back to Bangalore, but this time
with a broken heart, eyes cried out over a dead son and hands carrying her living one into her mother’s arms – while Boodle watched.

A few days later, she died; a bubble in the drips killed her. That day in May smelled of phenyl.

Six years later, at nine, Boodle went into my bathroom, curled behind the toilet bowl
and choked on his own vomit. We buried him under the custard apple tree – he used to eat them
and neatly pile up the seeds. Bhagyamma doused the whole toilet with phenyl.

My grandmother and I rushed out of the room, curled up in the scoop of the backyard swing
greedily breathing in the ripening Raspuri mangoes, running away from the smell of loss.

← Joshua Muyiwa