---

She sat there selling bangles

Set up in a wicker basket

Some laid down on the grass

Every now and then she gently

Swept off the dust that spread thinly

From teeming feet that hurried past

Barely slowing near the woman

Sitting on her haunches hoping

For someone to slow down, to pause

Her concave belly almost touching

The basket that was tugging

The life blood from her womb

Every time that she moved

Spilling it in little driblets

Onto its precious load

The maternal bond of glass and blood

Unremitting, never enough

As she sat car-caressing

Sometimes fretting, sometimes fussing

Rearranging, caring, loving

Always loving, always loving

A tender smile hov-hovering

Around her tired mouth

She was umbilical-corded

To her treasures

Resting in their bed of wicker

Willing them to cleave their way

Into the hearts of passersby

Willing them to shine so bright

That it brought tears to her eyes

The boundless world of plenty

In those bangles by her side

Behind her lay two little heads

Heat-numbed and stupefied

Little thumbs in little mouths

Doing their best to pacify

The endless hunger in their bellies

Matured and rarefied

Over lifetimes spent behind

Their mother as she hummed

Little songs of gentle rain

On golden fields of wheat and rye

Watching their little sisters

Take all their mother’s time

Resting in their basket

They tinkled and they winked

They watched their little sisters

Gleaming, laughing in delight

Suckling on the joyfulness

That streamed from their mother’s eyes.

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Mahvash was a part of the Financial Services Industry.   When she’s not writing, she’s fussing in her head, over ideologies of social justice and equality, with superhero twists! Mahvash’s stories and poems have appeared in The Rumen, Sequoia Speaks, Recesses, Every Day Fiction and Blaze Vox magazines.  Her poem, “Veins” was long listed in the Plough 2023 poetry competition. She has published a book of short stories and three books in a children’s series.