Once in our home in Agra, the monsoon was over

and there was no water or power for a day so we waited forever—our mouths lusting to speak half-truths about making out and going braless in the back seats of the cars and when that could not distract us, we ran to the open terrace, sucking lollipops and since there wasn’t a soul outside in the heat, we took off our PJs, and became the afternoon—our earlobes and neck, our limbs and nails turning pink from the syringe of the sun, asphalt gritting our feet, downstairs our mothers calling our names circled red with curses <slurp> we stuck our technicolor tongues out in the direction of the Taj Mahal that made everyone believe that men could become immortal by mourning their young wives, and call it devotion—well, no one had ever been more intimate with us than the tangerine light that flushed and freckled our faces and rubbed stars on our backs every night—so yeah, in the ocean of heat—white as the mausoleum’s marble—we shimmered like mermaids, moving haphazardly as if our bodies would break free and never, never be like our mothers’ when they slept next to our fathers, cold and lonesome, their hands folded on their bellies, yearning to feel something other than their skin holding the promise of unattainable forever—like queens in their dark graves.