I seek meaning in the mosques of your breasts

i balance on a single wheel
on a thread spun
from my mother’s bra strap.
below me —
the crowd howls,
not knowing i ride the line
between womb & wound.

each turn of the wheel
asks:
who taught me to balance
on what should have been veiled?

and when it’s not a path,
the strap parts
the oceans,
becomes an ark
in its own genesis.
its cups - small hulls -
carrying every name
i was called.

the bra strap dangles —
i am dragged
towards the scaffold
of phansi ghat.

then feathers bloom
from what were once the cups,
a slow unraveling
into two birds.
they circle a thin horizon,
pulling dawn
out of the dark's cave,
embracing the sun’s first flame.
as the wings flutter,
feathers scatter like words
that almost resemble urdu.

i chase,
and nearly catch the birds
by the hem
as earths spin
uncovered.

i seek meaning in the mosques
of your breasts:
eye-ball planets
that stare back,
mimicking the sacred mounds
of our village,
where childless women pray for rain.
i drink the holy waters
of your flesh — pink
like salt from distant lands.

mother,
a fish gasps in the garden wall:
its scales gleaming like small mirrors.
paint dots on the door reveal
a man’s startled gaze.
a beast resides
in the cracked bathroom wall.
i see faces everywhere.
the air moans in heat.
the refrigerator sighs —
inside, a frozen Buddha
waits to melt
into his own mist.

i pray in the godless courtyards
of your body at dawn.
when you shower,
even the faucet bends
to listen —
all eyes in the walls wake.
the broken tile smiles
like a tired midwife.
the soldier in paint cracks
guards.

the ceiling sun stares,
angrily, at night.
i reach for the mirror,
it closes its eyes.

peel off the stitched skin
of shame.
i want to stand
as naked as god,
the motherless creator
who made the world
without memory or milk.

you wrapped me in fabric,
forgetting the cosmos
of your cleavage
where glitters of sweat
move like shooting stars.

i want to return
to that first skin —
before the name, before the cloth,
before your hands learned to cover.

mother, i want to get naked
until i am nothing
but light and bone,
and even you
cannot clothe me again.