Over at my Sister’s Garden
Eszter Kállay
over at my sister’s garden
during an online family event for easter
her face in a small cube without context
she is at home, blue sky and the concrete wall, the huge
circles under her eyes, her child sitting in a swing
so we can keep distance
reduce our presence to the cube
sending her ’many hugs’
she hung up all the clothes in the garden
she had a run which is the one time she can
be alone
flowing movements of dishwashing
stiffening arms
all those baby-supplies are so neat
they want to make you forget that giving birth
comes with so much blood that you would rather think it is mud
her son stepping into all the puddles
i wave to them and move on, i do not hear the stories
the objects around giving birth, the toys for children are always calm
her eyes are wide, her pupils narrow
like a birth canal
her face resembles mine so much it’s almost like
looking in a mirror, a cube in a secret garden
you cannot let others know how tired you are
i look at her body and examine the changes it bears
because of birth but i am afraid that it embarrasses her
her reflexes mirror mine, movements trying to cover change
a well-known body with an unknown modification
i try to ask her, about the objects, the toys and how she
feels but
happy easter we say and i look at how she put
some make-up on for our family time
her son falls asleep in the swing below
a cherry tree that still has its flowers
the canal of the eyes is a one-way passage
i look away and a picture is taken
she blinks, the video call is over and
the safety of the screen dissolves
Context: I recently read ‘Care under Capitalism: The crisis of “women’s work” ‘ by Helen Hester. It is a concise and poignant analysis of the care work economy, of the crisis of work and communities, of the feminisation of care, and unpaid labor. It helped me understand how global chains of care work are built up. It is a very unsettling read, yet somehow it still has a certain ease and even humor. It has sentences like “Work, under current conditions, is bad for you. A recent article by Chandola and Zhang found that low-paying or highly stressful jobs were as bad for people’s health as unemployment.” I could not agree with her more.