My son calls me from Canada

I must be on my third try

Of wordle

When the screen beeps, and

I see you in your familiar blue jacket

The smile hasn’t changed

Though the once fuller face seems leaner

Even in your twenties, the acne keeps returning

So I can give you tips to apply the

yogurt-turmeric paste

I almost shriek as you knowingly zap

one of zits with a tinkling laughter

This, this ritual

eases us into a familiarity

My eyes light up with a memory

of those high school days

When hygiene was a relic

And your long sikh tresses had jammed

Into a hermit’s deadlocks

Tedious hours were spent

Separating each strand - washing, combing

Restoring it to its health

I can recall a hundred more such

You ask me about my health

Innocuous remarks about deepening eyebags,

chubbier cheeks send me into a spin,

dad into chuckles

I point to your leaner frame

concerned if you are eating well

Carrying your nonchalance lightly,

You dismiss all my queries

with an assuring wave of hand

Then we both nudge each other

To eat sensibly

In one great swipe

Life seems to have shifted

One moment you were a schoolboy

demanding  new treats for dinner everyday

The next, you are an independent young lad

Managing life in another country

Measuring chicken and rice and spinach

Into weekly meal preps

Walking to and fro, skyrailing

To work

You talk about your weekend plans

Also asking after ours

Then surprise us with a Vancouver summer

vignette at the English Bay

You do click well of your own volition

I smile and mutter a thanks

demanding more from your camera 

We say our byes and

The screen beeps into stillness

for another week

It’s searing hot in June here

Somewhere along the Canadian skyline

Clouds mark the skies gray

As days stretch into pyramids

Of infinite light.

Taseer Gujral is a poet, editor, columnist and translator. She is an ACC (American Studies) scholar from ASRC, Hyderabad and has worked on the feminist poems of Adrienne Rich for her doctoral thesis. Her published works appear in Outlook, Sahitya Akademi, The Punch, Coldnoon Diaries, Open Book review and others. She is also one of the winners of the Mozhi Prize (2025) for translation. Her columns on Literature and Cinema have also appeared in DNA. Her interests range from Poetry and Translation to related art forms like Theatre and Cinema.