She stops and looks at her reflection in the rather ornate (his taste, not hers) bedroom mirror
Her reflection never refuses to startle her, even now
Thirty Four
Almost six feet and seven kilograms lighter than pregnant June
Still capable of lending fantasies when smiling lopsidedly at jokes (she practices her dimple as I write)
Or touching thighs or shoulders or ribs;
Accidentally, casually and perhaps flirtatiously
Or wearing sleeveless blouses that always, inexplicably,
Seem to be a size smaller
No zits
Good
Laugh lines and crow's feet
But nothing a few hours of sleep and make up can't handle
And men don't really care about stretch marks
Black makes me look slimmer
Blue also looks good on her, she decides slowly, nodding her head with finality
A sexy body and great clothes on a Sunday afternoon
A husband and a child, madly in love with her, waiting downstairs
And present here, in the framed photograph in either Maldives or Bahamas (she forgets where exactly)
The new house and its four, still smelling of enamel, walls and its thousand unopened cardboard boxes
A hot cup of Darjeeling Tea, with thin arrowroot biscuits
Gulzar’s Sunset Point on the radio, somewhere in the background
A stray canary by the window, a good omen
It is almost enough to be herself
It is almost perfect
Almost
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