Sanjay Ganesan
Two Dollars and a Spine of Steel
for the women who carry more than bricks
They wake
before the sky stretches
its arms,
feet thick with yesterday’s ache
and mouths dry
from screaming into pillows
that never answered back.
A sari tied not for grace
but to wipe sweat,
to hush a baby,
to shield shame.
Their bangles do not jingle—
they rattle like chains
on hands that never stop.
Widows,
or worse—wives
to ghosts who drink the rice away.
Their husbands crumble
before the bottle does,
and still,
she picks the pieces,
feeds the children
with fingers cracked
but never crooked.
They carry sand
on heads held higher
than the ones who spit down.
They mix cement
with dreams
they cannot spell,
for schools
they cannot enter,
for futures
they may never see
but believe in anyway.
The bosses call them
amma,
only when orders are barked.
They are cows
without names,
sheep without pastures—
counted
but never seen.
Yet no one builds
without them.
No wall, no road,
no city that gleams
can rise
without their broken backs
bent like prayer
and just as holy.
$2 a day.
Not enough to live.
Too little to die.
Still, they rise
with fists of dust
and eyes of fire.
Tell me,
what CEO, what minister,
what god
can match
the muscle
of a mother
who earns crumbs
and still
makes them a feast?