Prerana Kumar
Legacy Story – Drape
The first time I saw Nani drape a saree,
tussar silk shrouding the ooze of each sorrow
was Mama for her brother’s wedding,
afterbirth scars silvering the gauze
dark honey with a red seam
pleat, a jugular fountain
of women line their gums with saffron
before worship, don’t spill about what palmful
of neck a ruby might soil, it’s modest, Nani says
to hide how a body flays in some kinds
of light, at least they see swaying,
at least they see less wound
Legend is that dancer Draupadi,
who might have been slashed
waist down by a hundred swords,
was saved, cocooned into yards of velvet,
woven from a kind god’s hands
until he crumpled into her spinning
and from that man god’s fingers
the first tearing
of her stitch
Isn’t this my first full drape at fifteen,
my papa clapping a table
as Uncle Ramesh said carve
up my wheat body if I look
at him wrong
Isn’t this a man in England asking
what a pleasing skintone might blush like;
answer purplemouth, amberspit,
all those mudgirl colours,
each darkness a kind of bruising
to hide
the darker goats, led to the woods first
by ceremonial scarves, before their darker bleating
becomes meatwater in the air
Blush not pink not pink my skin is not talcum
soft for that shade
when asked if I’m north of the deccan
or south of the plateau, I say four languages
carve my waist-tuck
yesterday I soaked through my bandages
and giggled until all my anklets welted
in threads
A daughter escaped the coast a story ago
in her grandmother’s ribbons, when she dug out that first
bow from the base of her neck, she found every family woman
in the wound, pressed into knots between her bones
What is drape but imprinted memory?
I am backless every night,
pleating my grandmother’s leftover
body in windows,
I tell myself it’s for the view
not the fall
PRERANA KUMAR is a writer based in London. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from UEA and was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize 2022. She has been published in Magma, The White Review and Fruit among others.