by Samina Hadi-Tabassum

Dark black ganglion circles
Spreading out in radial fashion
From between their thighs
Underneath their armpits
Below their eyes
In between their behinds
Violet patches on the tips of their elbows
On their crusty knees and along their necks
Mongolian marks is what the doctor calls it
Vestigial reminders of my primordial past
Of Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan
Racing across the plains toward the west
Of Rudyard Kipling’s jungle
Of British colonialism and Mughal conquest
Of the brown savage
Peering through my newborn twins