Last night’s cooking fire
Whelped on your doorstep
Your core burned
Ceaseless in her womb
Your bed sucked
Her dry of
Upside-down fortune
Now you must burn
Illuminating dusk
Keep your nest
For her chicks
And of course you must
Bloody your hands
Seek a knife
To cut the cord
Cover yourself my girl
And don’t weep
For the cooking fire
Of yesterday birthed
On your doorstep.
Poem By Dalit poet Prathiba Pore translated by Gauri Deshpande. Source: Images of women in Maharashtrian Literature and religion.