Post Partum
I tell people I have the yellows.
Gelatinous shade of Omega 3 capsules
with their fish oil aftertaste and films
about angry White men in Bangladesh,
placid shade of egg salad
left out long after the picnic is done,
oppressive shade of summer joy
dulled by the blade of thirst.
Colour of get what you want but not what you need,
Van Gogh’s stars, bile and birdseed,
sedate heart of chamomile, the chaff of wheat,
smile-shaped scar showing its betadine teeth.
Best paired with May’s gulmohars,
bleeding into sky, staining streets,
koyals whistling themselves to sludge-thick sleep.
I tell people love is easy. It’s the way the body
will leaven and rise and crack to keep love fed
that really makes you weep.
Happy tears? people ask. So happy.
I tell them my gratitude is like the sun.
In turns it ripens, in turns it spoils.
Copyright © 2026 by Nikita Deshpande. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 27, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“With this poem, I wanted a play on ‘blues’ that challenges the notion that postpartum depression is a state of inert sorrow. The color yellow, with its associations of warmth and sunshine, became the perfect foil, letting me bear witness to all the love, rage, resentment, and deep pain that powers the mother machine and keeps it turning. As the poem moves, I wanted a rhythmic build up of imagery that simulates the vacant frenzy of those early days.”
—Nikita Deshpande