The extinct slug
Slugs have gone extinct from my garden, I no longer see them. They would have healed your broken bones, People say. Put them inside a banana And swallow them whole, they say. One woman tells me of a Newar mother Who would fry up the slugs and feed it to her tubercular daughter who lived in the dank and the damp of Ason’s secretive courtyards. Solicitous, loving. Telling her daughter only: “I brought you fish.” And the daughter in turn would urge her: “Eat, eat, eat the fish, do.” The mother insisted: “No, you must eat them.” Finally the young woman recovered, And became fat and strong. And lived to learn That she had been eating slugs all along. I fed my mother those black slugs when she broke her hips-- Perhaps three kilogrammes, my butcher tells me. You can find them in Shivapuri during the monsoon. I can get them, I have some afanta who can find them for you, Free of cost. The slugs don’t cost anything.
