Content note: implied mass death

 

On discharge, the hospital issues you a shining smartwatch—
it ticks differently to wall clocks. The adults say not to worry,
but a manikkūdu is a time cage and yours is narrowing
You wonder how small you can become
before it crushes you.

When the kids invite you to hit some cricket on the maithānam
It turns out you all have new watches, and yours doesn’t matter
So you agree to keep time by the clock-tower
and run, joyfully
and fall
and lie in the grass, laughing together
and have a ball until
watching the bowler
You see the hands spinning faster on your wrists’ time cages
And subdued, limp home to parents
who pray yours will still move slower than theirs

And this is not cricket, not any more,
only crisp green swathes of playing pitches
switched for scorching pyres of pale grey corpses
As maithānam becomes mayānam and the clocks speed on.

manikkūdu (மணிக்கூடு/maɳikku:ɖu) – wristwatch;

mani (மணி/maɳi) – time;

kūdu (கூடு/ku:ɖu) – cage;

maithānam (மைதானம்/mai̯t̪a:nam) – playing ground;

mayānam (மயானம்/maja:nam) – burning ground.

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