Dr.Elizabeth Vincent Koshy is a Professor of English at Dr. A.B.Telang Sr.College, Pune, India.Her poems, short memoirs and CNF have been published in print and online journal and magazines. Her poem ‘The mystical conjunction’ was selected by Sweetycat Press for ‘The Jewels in the Queen’s Crown’ anthology in the 24 K Gold category. Her poem ‘I’m in love with the wind ‘ was selected as ‘Publication of the month’ at Spillwords for the month of October ’23.

Guppy Life

_{I bring seven guppies home from a friend, two males and five females.
I put them in a glass bowl and wonder whether
They are traumatised swimming in circles,
Having been fished out from the tank that was their home,
Separated from their environment and from their family.}

_{I order a cube aquarium with a deep blue background the next day,
Put in granular aqua soil and plant a few plants:
Parrot green grass, mini lotus plants, dark green ones
With frilled flat and long leaves that float on the surface,
Tiny light green bushes and some red root floaters.}

_{I select a big white shell with long quill-like projections,
As an ornament for the tank, a contrast to the blue and the greens.
I buy a suction pump to clean the tank twice a month.
The sponge filter in place, their new home is ready
Equipped with aquarium lights for the plants.}

_{The males are showstoppers: one with an orange dorsal fin
Streaked with florescent blues and pinks and an orange fantail.
The other with fluorescent blue dorsal fin
Streaked with bougainvillea pink and blue fantails,
Black bodies, glistening silver heads and bellies.}

_{The females are camouflaged light grey
Or black with silver heads and silver bellies.
Two have bluish-white fins and fantails spotted with black.}

_{One has a white moon on a black fantail,
Two females have orange fins and fantails.}

_{As soon as they see me in the hall room they teem
In the closest corner hoping to be fed.
They snap up bloodworms within seconds
And rest together for a while, satiated,
Their lateral fins keeping them steady in the water.}

_{At night I switch off the hall lights and watch them settle for the night
In the dark, behind leaves, in the grass and under the shell.
Having overfed the guppies, the tank is full of snails soon.
They feed on the extra food and the dendrites in the soil.
I introduce assassin tiger snails, to keep the tiny snails in check.}

_{My guppies love to dive in and swim up with the water bubbles
Bubbling to the surface from the filter’s mini waterfall.
The floaters get carried down too, along with the bubbles
And they float back to the top continuously or get stuck
To the filter pipe forming a green pillar in the tank.}

_{The males tail the females, all throughout the day –
At times three males behind one female;
Often they move in front of them, enticing them,
Their dorsal fins straight up in the water like flags,
Their tail fins fluttering like shimmering fans.}

_{The females are least interested or so it seems.
Perhaps it is meant to be this way:}

_{The fish would not be zipping around, moving
From one end of the tank to the other in a flash and a ripple
If the females had readily consented.}

_{I am surprised to see a black spot in the bellies of the females indicating pregnancy.
I’d never seen a female relenting, in spite of the long hours of chase.
The black spot in their bellies grows larger each day.
The females though hugely pregnant are still chased by the males.
To escape, they rest on the hammocks formed by the floating leaves.}

_{Soon there are tiny transparent fishes wiggling their tails,
Each with two black eyes, on the surface of the water.
The next generation of guppies have arrived.
The fry move around together and stay away from the adults.
No concept of a family here, they fend for themselves from birth.}

_{Within a month they develop their colours.
It’s easy to see which male has fathered them—the orange fantail.
They grow to full size within six months, about two inches long,
Ready to spawn a whole new batch of guppies.
I introduce two new males in the tank to curtail inbreeding.}

_{A zebra striped one and the other as yellow as a daffodil.
And with that begins a brand new chapter of guppy life.
When the zebra striped male died, I did see the other fishes concerned,
Especially the daffodil male, trying to prod it awake.
They had stayed together as comrades from the beginning.}

_{I spend hours looking at the guppies swimming, pursuing,}

_{Escaping, foraging, resting and playing with the bubbles.
No loners, no sense of ennui, anxiety or depression, no ambition.
I did see bitten fantails: small sacrifices for bigger causes.
Wish one could live a guppy life: no worries for the future or regrets of the past.}

_{The guppies are in a small world of their own.
Perhaps God watches over us like I watch over them:
Providing us necessary living conditions, at times changing them,
Or separating us from our families to live and multiply in other lands.
Perhaps He too worries about us like I worry about my guppies.}

The Birth of a Mother

_{I look at the ultrasound image of my baby
Suspended by the umbilical cord rooted to my uterine lining
Like a sprouting seed anchored by its radicle to the nutrient rich earth.}

_{Fluid transformed to muscle and bone:
I am in awe of the perfection of the meiotic and mitotic
Chromosomal dance of creation.}

_{The image shows blood in the foetal sac — I’m scared.
My mind hadn’t healed from the sorrow of my first miscarriage.
I am given a painful injection every month till the fourth.}

_{The first sign of life, fluttering butterflies in my womb in the fourth.
Undulations like dolphin sightings in my stomach in the fifth.
I am an anaconda that has swallowed a deer in the ninth.}

_{The doctor induces labour twelve days before full term – baby’s head too big.
I am given an injection at 7 in the evening, the contractions begin soon after.
I am shocked by the intensity of the pain.}

_{The room disappears and then appears with every contraction.
Pain clenches its jaws around my pelvic girdle and lower back:
My husband tries in vain to massage it away, to unclasp its hold.}

_{I die and live through the night, I drown and resurface,
I gasp and sweat with the contractions that follow one upon the other.
My baby, blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh, refuses to budge.}

_{That was the longest night I ever lived: night of blackouts and searing pain.
Six in the morning I was free, spent, knocked out.
Awake, I shivered like a leaf.}

_{The nurse brings the baby and puts him beside me.
One look at him and the struggles of the night are forgotten.
Happiness in my heart and on every face in the room.}

^{Streams of milk flow out through my breasts:
Suckling my baby the only solution to my predicament.
Later, I even rush back home from work, my brassiere wet with milk.}

^{With the baby at my breast, I was an incarnation of the Divine Mother.
The overwhelming love I felt for him, a natural outcome
Of the prolactin and oxytocin hormone having its way.}

_{Worrying about my baby, I understand the dreams, fears, struggles and sacrifices}

_{Of every mother: insect, animal, fish or fowl.
It is only when we have a baby that we truly understand our mothers.}

Divided House

_{Ours is a divided house now:
Daughter and me with my father in his house,
Son and husband with his mother in our house
After my brother was snuffed out like a candle
In an unexpected gust of strong wind.
How can old parents be left to fend on their own?
My father, eighty six, stricken by two mild attacks,
Mom-in-law, ninety, bed-ridden.}

_{The pain of separation heightens at parting.
One tries to remember every second
Of what it feels like to be embraced in a bone-crushing
Bear hug that embodies the reluctance to leave.
The memory of the hug lingers and sustains me
Till we meet again: eyes shining, smiles warm.
Sitting close with interlocked hands
We steal kisses and hugs like honeymooners.}

_{When all of us finally meet on Sundays,
We are complete, hearts knit together in love.
Holding each other tight in a long embrace, saying ‘family’,
We pray for the fulfilment of each other’s wishes
And that we be safe till we meet again.
The divided house having given us space and freedom}

_{Shows how intertwined our hearts are: incomplete
And unsatisfied with life and living, without each other.}