1. 

Dear Mai, 

We wake up now, holding time inside 

the soft tissue of our viscera, 

like the oyster that has survived 

a pearl harvest and, now reseeded, 

lives in anticipation of the shucking knife 

to rid it of its crystallised disease. 

To survive this mutilation means to be repurposed, 

again and again, until you've paid the water its debt, 

travelling far into the restless belly of the sea, 

no longer protected by the deities of land. 

We have become too conditioned to extremes, 

our sacrilege heavier than a whale's heart. 

Nights creep closer, like the ghost in charge 

of overseeing the soundless beheading 

of every creature that emerges from the sea, 

in silent anticipation of its own turn. 

We fasten the ropes, bundle ourselves shut 

in this cabin with no windows, 

stacked like reef shadows, 

pressed belly to back. 

Outside, the rain falls in the direction of escape. 

So we wait.  

2.  

Dear Mai, 

We are perennial, like bycatch caught 

in the cod-end and solitary ghost nets, 

and weatherproof deckhands cleaning 

and filleting their existence to the bone. 

We fall asleep watching the sea 

deconstruct itself. 

Far below, a dugong mother swims past 

dying seagrass beds, guiding her calf 

to the shallower meadows. 

Schools of mackerels plan their escapes, 

the wandering albatrosses above 

witness us encroaching 

the bioluminescent plankton blooms. 

Far away from our line of sight, 

the land awaits the natal homing of turtles. 

Only the sea remembers life, 

the address of each birthplace. 

So we wait. 

3. 

Dear Mai, 

You said ours is the only planet 

held up by Kurma, the giant cosmic turtle 

that rests upon the infinite, 

multi-hooded cosmic serpent, Ananta Shesha. 

Grandmothers know of the beginning, 

which sprouted with only a singular lotus 

growing from the navel of Vishnu, 

swaying in the gentle waves 

of the endless cosmic ocean, 

where the devas and asuras 

struggled for the nectar of immortality. 

Now we live in houses on the shifting earth, 

counting the fractures in the sand 

where Vishnu's divine Kurma, 

as immortal as debt bondage, nests. 

The lotus is wilting in indebtedness, 

So we wait. 

4. 

Dear Mai, 

In our unanchored dreams, 

we're shorebirds travelling in the dark 

to avoid predation.  

When awake, we look up again 

to clock our lives 

to the night migration of birds. 

We wait like the shadows 

that glide and hover above water 

before diving for fish. 

We wait through the assault of thunder 

and the pull of the tides. 

We wait, knowing that the waves 

never make a deliberate crash 

and would even apologise 

if they recognised the composite of speeches 

we say our prayers in. 

Our prayers to the sea, 

sequestered with the hundreds of its names, 

become funeral dirges. 

So we wait. 

5. 

Dear Mai, 

Back home, the last storm surge 

brought out a lonely heron, 

desperately picking at the debris 

of the wreckage of our homes. 

Nearby, a lost tarpaulin from someone's roof 

fluttered about like the last feeble attempt 

of a hatchling to take off 

before the ants find it, 

before decomposition claims it, 

before the storm carries it 

further away from the nest. 

We could outrun the wind then, 

carrying our lives through stampedes. 

We could nudge the fish drought away 

with ritual boats 

offering the sea flowers and rice, 

year after year, 

with moistened hands of glass. 

Under the sun's landmark,  

it doesn't take long 

before becoming one 

with the stench of fish guts and entrails. 

So we wait. 

6. 

Dear Mai, 

Do mothers still go to the edge of the sea, 

hands raised, shaking their fists in the dark 

in accusation, where Mahanadi empties into the sea 

after mothering her tributaries, 

to speak to the eels that complete their life cycle 

between the river and the sea, 

and the hilsa moving upstream to spawn, 

and the bhetki juveniles that must migrate to the sea 

in adulthood, abandoning behind 

the memories of their childhood? 

Do the crustaceans know the ocean's cartographer? 

Have they met freshwater mrigal 

that have survived the saltwater in no man's land? 

Here, we've heard from them all, 

and still, nobody knows 

the circumstance of vanishing in the sea. 

So we wait. 

7. 

Dear Mai,  

The ship is ageing—its body rots and rusts, 

the paint peels, deck warps, anchor corrodes, 

the hull's backbone cracks with movement, 

whispers back to us in groans and sighs— 

and we age with it. We hang by the rail, 

looking at its disjointed reflection in the water. 

How long before it splits and sinks, 

and the waves swallow the last of the wreck? 

The salt in the air 

preserves the ship's decay 

and speeds ours, 

So we wait. 

8. 

Dear Mai, 

The ocean's cartographer 

has drawn the way back home underwater. 

In death, we outlive our debts, 

So we wait.