As the dead mother sings

As the dead mother sings
To the fetus inside her womb
“My baby,
Don’t ask the moon for anything
It will drop bombs and snakes
Don’t ask the sky for milk
It will rain blood till it suffocates you
My baby, don’t try to grow up
I heard they eat human flesh
Sleep my baby
Sleep inside my womb
This is the sweetest place in the world”

The fetus sings back with its little hands waving in air
“Mother! They have cut your womb
And taken me out
From my sweetest place in the world
They have kept me inside this chafu
They say it is a bit of Mother Earth
Mother, touch your womb
They have stitched it
Like you stitched the potato sacks

Mother, what do they mean by shoiren?
They call me by this name
They even say you are dead
And now I am starting to believe them
Cos you are lying inside the wooden box
Not on your bed
And I smell blood
And why is my brother crying?”

And a lullaby echoes in the streets of Imphal
But no one listens to it even if they hear
And wait for a day to sing their own lullaby