He calls his mother late at night.
The one who’s been a decade dead.
He asks her for some spinach soup.
Perhaps, caress his throbbing head?

He cringes at her loud reply:
The spinach isn’t good for you.
Your body needs the iron, but
The spinach has potassium too.

Your kidneys aren’t strong enough
To keep the ion balance yet.
So don’t you ask me for a thing
That I can’t give without regret.

The morning drains his sleeping pill.
His pain is back to wake him up.
He peeks into the bedside tray
Where Grandma used to leave her cup.

She’d beat you with her Jatra sticks,
He tells me as he figures out.
To match her words is easy, but
You cannot imitate her shout.