Avni Doshi

t must be the worst kind of suffering – cognizance of one’s own collapse, the penance of watching as things slip away.

I wish I could be that way, but the mother I remember appears and vanishes in front of me, a battery-operated doll whose mechanism is failing. The doll turns inanimate. The spell is broken. The child does not know what is real or what can be counted on. Maybe she never knew. The child cries.

Sometimes I cry when no one else is around – I am grieving, but it’s too early to burn the body.