CW: death

The groom’s family had not asked for dowry in the traditional sense

Their demand was not of land or a motorcycle

Just some decent clothing, furniture, and jewelry for the bride

and a nice meal for the wedding guests

Partition left Bengal in unfair, impoverished halves and my grandfather penniless with too many 

daughters to marry off

So when his second daughter’s dead body surfaced floating on a pond in her husband’s village

a year after a disreputable wedding unmet of demands and unfed guests

The village whispers buzzed, before the pond, the body hung from a wooden panel on the ceiling

Before that, the body was heard screaming

Before that, the body regretted its birth

Before its birth, the body that birthed the body hoped it will have a better life sans pain

When I ask my mother if she has any regrets in the way she raised me

She says coming “here”

She says it pushed me away from her and Abba

and I wonder had we stayed if I would have been just another body

shuddering myself asleep

feigning contentment at learned obedience for a chance at survival

waiting for my body’s turn to be squashed under one man’s thumb from another

Amatan Noor is a Bangladeshi queer Muslim poet residing in Brooklyn. She has performed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Brooklyn poetry slam at BRIC among other venues. Her work explores themes of survival, diaspora and Islam. Her work has been published on No, Dear magazine and Brown Girl and elsewhere.