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checked by mate

-Yena Sharma Purmasir, Swarthmore ’14

My grandfather did not play chess

because that board looked too much like home.

The pieces come in black and white

and the squares taste like the streets of America

but underneath the instructions lies the warm

breath of India that has always been

just beyond my epidermis.

I never wanted to smell like spices and herbs

but I carried the culture of my ancestors in the hollow of my throat.

Somewhere between learning how to braid my hair

and jingling my bangles, I forgot the stories of the old kings

and queens. These elbows point to the world

because when my women did not have knives,

they learned to fight with their bones.

Some history is lost in translation but the rest is locked

inside our genome.

I do not know who to call mine

because this world always seems to belong to someone

else. My grandfather did not pour his blood into this soil

but he held his life in the dirt of his skin. Maybe it’s easier for men;

I drop my life into this country, hoping to make this taste

like home. I am not afraid to be white-washed into freedom

just like I was not afraid to be dyed

red brown, in the blood of the forefathers

who mean nothing to me in the Atlantic.

My grandfather is not a hero but I have folded the sound of his name

into my heart to keep him for always. I live in Queens

but America has taught me to hang portraits of kings

on my mantle piece. I carry my father’s photograph in my wallet

because every daughter wants to remember

the lines on her father’s face. The distance between my father,

my grandfather transcends the universe

but I like to hug my mother before bed,

if only to remind myself that we are still together.

My navel is my life scar but I have seen my mark stretched across

her stomach. They photograph ethnic women carrying water

on their heads but I am more amazed by women carrying

their children after birth.

In my stories, I have never been brave enough to call my mother

my queen but she has let me play princess

even as I slide into adulthood. The whole world can call me beautiful

but no one will mean it like she does. My mother has fought for my beauty,

lifted my skin color off the ground and offered it to our gods.

I am the first born who was not a son

but my mother does not hold my gender

in the same breath as her love. I am the baby girl

who had to learn to work with tools. Her friends

have girls who can cook but she says that she is mother

enough to feed us.

There are two colors on a chessboard

but the only one I can see is the faint pink

of my femininity. The me on that board has nothing to do

with India or America. Border lines are drawn on maps,

on boards but not on people. My skin is dark

but only because I have been burned by the fire

of the sun. Let that star be masculine,

adopt him and call him yours. You cannot look to his light

but the moon will shine where he cannot.

You do not have to ask but she will follow you home,

watch you sleep, love you

for all the times the sun cannot.

Royalty is nothing in the 21st century

but we pretend to know how to be part of that court.

My history books tell me women were quiet

even when they owned crowns. My teachers tell me

they were beautiful and weak

and soft. Women are always soft

because everything about our bones has curved

into a sphere of fertility.

Men wish to feel the dips of our frames

but I have seen others trace the sharpness of the queen.

Kings have seen men die but do not ask them

to watch their wives pass.

Maybe he had to guard the people,

but she had to guard his heart.

My grandfather did not play chess

but he was as useless as any losing king

the day his wife died.

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