I pour water for my plants and think,

how easily kattarvazha became kathaazhai here

as a potted aloe vera plant crossed the boundaries of Kerala to Tamil Nadu,

the last syllables making all the difference with their unique enunciation

and nothing more said, as if it was simple like the rains changing their course of heart,

marking an invisible border; the change of names.

Did my mother too, feel the same ease?

As she drowned her old self and rose to her newly baptized name,

into its foreign pronunciation, removing her vermilion bindi and plaiting those locks

as she walked with father into a christened marriage;

letting her brown name float into the empty skies, while being pinned with long nails

to an immigrant religion’s moon.

Or did she wear it like a mermaid’s water gown remaining herself throughout,

carrying her changed name and living her old one inside the ocean dome.

Maybe it’s only the tender tulsi leaves on her otherwise wet hair she misses;

constantly inquiring about the rains in this persistent summer valley.

And maybe it is this absence of dampness;

she clutches the eternal changes of crossed boundaries.