Breadwinner

Down the hill, over pebbles and rocks,
we chase after him, he after the stream,
and rush into an old stone-slate hut.

Out comes the gush of his laughter.
We are panting a chorus now. Our hands
on our knees, and cheeks, city-red.

Now he, my father, is a little boy
flaunting his 'phoren' toy, while we, 
twenty-first-century camera kids,
witness the wooden chakra,
and the chant of the millstones. 

He unites with his fourteen-year-old
fatherless self, carrying a sack of wheat 
or corn for three miles. His voice 
cues our lips into smiles, till
dew descends into my eyes
wishing to embrace 
his fifty-year-old feet.

He has shouldered three 
generations—his mother, 
siblings, our mama and us,
and he is still humming like the stream,
like the grindstone. 

                           He is the wheat,
the watermill, the roti in my mouth.


Previously published in The Cortland Review, with Audio