Indian girls started their periods
earlier, according to my mother.
(I thought that's what she said.)
And she mentioned Neema
who, visiting years before,
one solemn afternoon,
had sat by the rockery
and named her doll after me.
A graceful, ladylike girl, but
suffering early that unimaginable
drip onto something like a dressing,
known by its initials, worn
mysteriously between the legs.
Was I more Indian or more English?
I blurred, as I would forever
when my blood seeped regularly
into the outer world.
I'd even run with that strangeness,
awkward in the egg-and-spoon race,
or guard it in the struggle to pass
an orange hugged under the chin,
hands secured behind my back.
