At the Altar

1 Minute Read Time

A small statue-image of Vishnu as an elephant. It's on an altar with a glass jar and yellow, white, and purple flowers — Photo by Happy Surani on Unsplash

The women’s line snakes
like a weed, the men’s line a stub.
Amma & I mutiny, jump
ship. We are used to going
              where we do not belong.
All we want is to make an offering,
but we are asked to leave this queue. 
It has always been like this,
the priest says, his incensed mundu
bunching around his waist.
                           And I wonder: Who has
told him this? What is gender
to God?
                Shameless, we hoist
our voices above the priest. Wait
for shame, or at least inertia,
to flood him. It does not,
so we stand. I have heard of
divines who divide the seas—
                           Vasudeva, Moses—
but none that split lines.
               What a mortal task.
God created humans & humans
created religion, Amma tells me.
               That does not answer
               my questions, but
in Malayalam, it alliterates. 
I wish you knew.

Uma Menon

is a writer from Winter Park, Florida. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Progressive, The Massachusetts Review, and other publications. She is the author of My Mother’s Tongues (Candlewick Press, 2024) and Our Mothers’ Names (Candlewick Press, 2025).

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