SHE ASKED ME "What have you done to yourself!" she exclaimed. "Your belly bulges, your hips have spread, and the breasts hang limp and huge! So many kids..." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. I looked with envy at her svelte shape and cried inside. Today, six years later, we meet again. She looks exactly like me. Her face is flushed, her children cling to her shapeless body, but a smile glows on her face. ITS DIFFICULT TO REMOVE THE DIRT Ifs difficult now to remove the day's crud from one's body, to rid the hair of all the dust, to scrub the ring around the neck with soap, then gradually move towards the two globes— slightly askew— that never seem to gather any dirt (I don't wash them anymore.) Then down to the not-so-flat belly covered with years of sweat, sticky like forgotten gum that can't be scraped (Soap-suds form on the belly's surface, form then burst.) Next come the ungainly hips (There was a time when heads would turn and eyes would follow my swinging back.) From the navel's whorl to the tips of the toes the suds play hide and seek then gurgle down the drain in a dirty froth Yes, ifs difficult now to rid the body of its dirt. Annual of Urdu Studies, #7 47