by Samodh Porawagamage
Excerpts from All the Salty Sand in Our Mouths
TO COUSIN G.
We’ve all grown up
and you are nowhere
close to schooling, so late
that, even I, the youngest
of the lot, know how babies
are born. I do have permission
to take you to the road, and help
you count the cars. Correct when
you get a color wrong. Yup, the sky
is blue, that lorry is also blue, your sand
castle beige or brown. More sand? No, I won’t
take you to the beach for sand
until you can run!
A PRACTICAL LESSON ON ATTENTION
Hills loom larger when one nears them. Humans diminish in proximity.
_Sinhala proverb
As we looked on
the water trickled
far into the horizon,
the beach now an endless
black paddy prepared
for the ploughing.
So the fish bellydancing
for water glistened in the sun.
Villagers fought each other
to split the new land.
Tourists sipped on
the sight with their tea.
Let’s go get our dads
I said to cousin’s smirk,
he having helped thirty
fishies into puddles
versus my five. I shouted for help
from other kids chasing
the gulls away. Sapumal asked
for my water bottle
then spilled it. A wave
pounded on the horizon.
We shared one glance
and ran, zig
zagging over and above
the leaping fish.
THE WRISTWATCH
I think I’m fine, and now that the parents
have arrived, the hospital can’t keep me
another night under observation.
My favorite nurse unstraps my hands.
Nobody asks why there were restraints
in the first place. She, then, whispering
something unhearable, shoves
a bag of my stuff into mum’s hands.
We can’t go home yet. Others, too,
need to be found. I’m very brave
for waiting a day like I did.
It seems only mum, dad, and Raja uncle
weren’t caught in the thing. Now that
I’m found, six more are still missing—
seven with the baby Nisha aunty
is carrying, I correct mum.
They agree and praise me for
my sharp memory, which is
no big deal when I can’t
remember enough of yesterday.
I ask for the bag of my things.
A silence the size
of ocean blows into the car.
So I ask again.
“It’s dirty, son,” dad says. “Let’s wait
till we get to the hotel. Oh, it’s a new
place we think you’d like to see.”
Once at the hotel
dad leaves to join the search party.
But it’s just him, Raja uncle, and a friend
of them living nearby. Mum busies
herself with a Southern province map.
I untie the blue polythene bag. The knot
beats my wits. So I tear it open
to the stench of stale vomit on what
used to be my favorite beach clothes.
Mum rushes to shield me from it all.
She can be fast, but not too fast.
My wristwatch falls out, too. As she
takes me back to bed, I cling on
to it for a clue, like it is the last
straw my past depends on.
You’re safe, everything’s fine!
I hide the watch under my pillow and wait.
Mum won’t leave me this time.
So I pretend sleep for long, and more long.
Mum finally leaves to hide
the bag somewhere in the bathroom.
I take out the watch. It, too,
hasn’t stopped breathing
like my morbid heart. Drops of water
have seethed inside, and a bubbly mist
blurs the hands and numbers.
But it’s dry. It’s so dry that when
I press the dial to my face
another sun begins to dawn.
CASKET SHOPPING
Nobody knows to put a finger on his height
and then Uncle Two has the genius idea
“How tall are you?”: me, who made it, to serve
as the perfect model for his best friend’s
coffin. My mother insists I shouldn’t go
with them to the casket shop, but now
I fear no death. In the car I imagine living
in one for the rest of my life. People
bending over me in respect. A fine young
Cricketer. Hasn’t even matured
into shaving his face. Then somebody ruthless
shuts down the lid. The imaginary darkness comes
alive, slithers into my guts. I tremble, and yank
numbed feet to bump against the front seat.
Uncle keeps patting my head. Just one glass
these days assures him that I am the son
he hasn’t found for a month. I stroke the model
coffin outside the shop too much that my father
quietly growls a reminder. I follow them for a bit
and stop over a casket just enough to put me in
for display. Infinite curves like mouths of death
swallow my finger along the pillow box. My lowering
head snuggles against the soft silk. Everything
blackens and I freefall towards a vague
light in the tunnel. Somebody grabs me from the dark
in Uncle’s form. “Not dead! Sapumal, my son!
He’s alive. Look, here he is! Just like that!
No need for a coffin!” Then my father’s voice
wafts above my ear “Just a power cut. Don’t stare
into the torchlight.” It’s not real that I’m alive.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL – SEVENTH GRADE
after the wave, the national flag
forgot to staff in half.
The school flag, somehow,
drooped to the wind. The prefect
who climbed the pole to fix it
fell down and wrung his arm.
We watched in the silence
of a covered distance: the beach
almost next door, and we’d never
be very safe, so my ears
had twitched to every sound, ready
to flee. A mate asked how to do
this curious thing
with the ears and I scowled.
Already at eleven
I’d mastered the art
of running while shouting
for others to join. I found
no shame to it.
For PT on the Cricket pitch,
I’d be running
even before the bat
would touch the ball.
The umpire warned me
as if he’d ever faced a wave
running amok, so I kept
my cool and smiled.
During the interval,
loudspeakers announced
another string of speeches
for the rest of the day.
A few hired workers
moved the flags
inside the stadium.
The lion roared to the breeze
in hurt pride, holding high
its tail. I thought how lonely
it must have been to hang
erect on a pole
and blow with every wind.
An alumnus minister
came hours late to deliver a speech
on voting in tough times.
He never glanced at us.
The opposition leader, too,
said something on disaster
and I realized the heaviness
attached to the school’s prestige
wasn’t weight. At practice
after school, the Cricket coach
rebuked me for having lost
a kilo and I wondered how
it drowned. Later, I slapped
my captain who was glad
we got an extra
month of holidays and still
couldn’t see in his eyes
wee bit of the terror I felt
when the wave lifted me
above the trees.
RITUAL
Too cooked to write more tsunami elegies,
I sleep for the ghosts to return with stories
I can’t find in research. They stab me in tiny
ripples. I practice lying in sleep, and pretend
I’m dead, too. Then, memory reconstructs
the oblivion of the beaches and beyond. Buddhism says
sudden death leaves a trail of suffering to wake. The sun rises,
I’m about to go on living another
dead life – wrapping my head around
its last moment. The mind plays many tricks. The sunlight
makes it look real: death smells are gone, no whispers
in the ear. I have been working for five hours. My pen
slips from my hand and rolls
into the purgatory under my bed. This precision
scares me. Once, I recorded me sleep:
I didn’t flinch at night, but my hair
moved out of my head, and returned at four.