Hiraeth by Swati Moheet Agrawal

My wistful heart flutters

as I pull up to 464 Marve Street

the nondescript building from my childhood.

Buried under debris

everything is gone

save the echoes of my memories.

how the four of us sat huddled together on the wobbly ottoman

how grandma stretched out on the cocoa-colored couch.

how Toby flung my favourite pink frock out the window

how I disheveled his neatly combed hair.

how Rusty hungered for sweets and savories after school

how he’d howl clambering up the building stairs.

how Charmaine made the most decadent tea ever

she made it using mint leaves grandma grew on the building terrace.

how we fought over the Television remote control

how I smashed Charmaine’s tiny skull against the old-fashioned kitchen tile.

how grandpa split Dairy Milk into four equal halves

how we trooped and paraded after him to the iconic Marve beach!

After snapping out of my reverie

I scour through the rubble

I pick up a battered brick

I place it on the passenger seat of my Maserati

Upon arriving home

I set it in the soil of my mint garden and weep.

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Swati Moheet Agrawal is a poet and writer based in Mumbai, India. Her work has appeared in Potato Soup Journal, Cogito Literary Journal, The Criterion, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Pangolin Review, Mad Swirl, Ariel Chart, and is forthcoming in Thimble Lit Mag, The Spring City and Muse India. She tweets @MoheetSwati.