Throwback Thursday: A Movie Inspired Poem

Grandma’s Address Book

She likes the black and white Bollywood movies

with the actresses that have faces as round as clocks,

the ones with big eyes rimmed with dark liner

set off with small red dots

on their foreheads and thick braids to their waist

that toss back and forth when they walk.

She likes to imitate the movements of the dancers,

especially when she’s wearing a skirt or a dress

that flaps. She’ll spin in slow circles and twist her hands

as if she were screwing a light bulb, or picking watercress,

moving to the movie’s flute-and-drum-pulsing-songs

until she has to lie down, panting, and out of breath.

She likes to sit on the couch with a knife and bowl

of plantain, carelessly chopped into strips,

enthralled by the screen’s company and console.

Sometimes she pretends she’s the pretty, young girl that runs

shyly away from her handsome lover, until he grabs hold

of her arm, and walks with her into the sunflower field.

She likes to see the same ones over, and over, and over again

until she can watch them without the subtitles and note

the words of her favorite phrases and the names of characters and pen

them onto the blank lines of her address book,

possible names to give to her unborn grandchildren

and the ducks she feeds in the backyard.

-Amelia Badri