the ghosts were of smoked blue
glass, chipping away at my
enamel like a layer of fluffy white
rice masking small-boned pebbles.
Like a child on Eid, I licked clean
the saffron and the cashew-nut
-spangled kheer, too young to spell
my name, forewritten on the margins
of tomorrow’s newspaper: Communal 
Riot in XYZ. Four Killed. 
More like three-and-a-half, you said.
“Or four, yes, if you count me.”
Now, every morning, you bring me
flowers.