Bengali Wedding
by Amatan Noor
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.