The Big Pearly F by Anupama Godakanda

In the beginning I was just Hanry Mahatthaya’s granddaughter

Then men opened doors for the barely-middleclass me

Carried feathery parcels and offered unwanted seats

On the shady side on the bus and the train

Escorted home me with dire warnings of wolves

Lurking behind every dim lamppost along the long lane home.

And then in the 70s we got the news

That the roads were paved with yellow gold bricks

In the New Jerusalem and its twin across the Atlantics

That Kristeva and Baym, hooks and the like

Had wrested the keys from the Peters of the world

To the Big Pearly F, itself

And that we were finally free –

I wasn’t aware that we weren’t so

So kept quiet not to appear the hillbilly jenny –

And the ceiling was shattered at last

That we were no longer whaling

But quilting – or is it sewing? – under the musky shade

Of a backyard flamboyant!

We sang lusty hosannas at Pera, Colombo, and Kalyaani

In black-and-white and in spoken word.

I left home and walked right through

The BPF so as to behold that Big Bright World

Waiting for me breathlessly –

Or it seemed so that day.

Today, I, with my 37 gender choices,

My tits are pinched

My rump is clamped

By not only the Bills, the Trumps,

And the Kennedys of that world

But also the Hillarys, the CBKs, the Aquinos,

And the Obamas, too

While I made finger-food for one

And Bloody Marys for the other

Tongued a cunt for one

And gave head to a non-existent dick of the other

While they had their afternoon naps

Between mopping their floors and doing their whites.