Tortoise Shell Combs by Mumtaz N Khorakiwala | A Poem

Those caramel tortoise shell combs
Beautifully brown, a liquidy amber
In morning sunlight. I wish I hadn't
Taken them from granted,
When you tucked them into my unruly curls.
Remember your fingers combing
Through my tangled tresses,
Each day you'd whisper,
“Child, you are such a tomboy.”
While I'd toss my thick hair
From side to side mischievously
Until you'd hold me tight
And kiss my lush unknotted hair,
Brushing the strands into delightful ringlets
That framed my childish face.
You tut tutted…
Yet how your dimpled smile gave you away!

Until that day, when you turned your face the other way
“Grow up, you're old enough!”
My locks hungered for your gentle fingers.
How I rue, that fit of rage,
That passing storm in a teacup,
The crescent-like, speckled tortoise shell combs away, I threw.
Today, I yearn, for your arthritic, gnarled, pale,
Sinewy knobbed fingers to comb through
My locks. And yet I know
They can barely hold a comb.
Mother, how bewitching those childhood days,
Ah those times, when
You arrested my shock of hair
Under two broad toothed tortoise shell combs,
Then brushed, each strand, untangled, until it shone,
As if burnished copper were turning gold.

Batool Idrish Siamwala pens in her maiden name, Mumtaz Khorakiwala. After fifteen years of teaching English Language & Literature in Vizag, she has come back to writing poetry. Her poetry has won accolades on several online forums. Recently, she has published her own volume of poetry titled Saudade.