{"id":95984,"date":"2021-06-26T19:06:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T23:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=95984"},"modified":"2021-06-26T19:08:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T23:08:03","slug":"no-10-the-jewelry-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/no-10-the-jewelry-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 10 – The Jewelry Belt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0No. 10 – The Jewelry Belt<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Nandhini G. Natarajan<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We dread moon-lit nights.<\/p>\n

They always bring the bombers.<\/p>\n

This is the third time tonight<\/p>\n

we are running into the bomb shelter.<\/p>\n

My skin around my stomach is chaffed<\/p>\n

because of the heavy jewel belt.<\/p>\n

It is bleeding in places.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When the war begins<\/p>\n

The first thing I do<\/p>\n

is protect the gold jewelry,<\/p>\n

the only reliable security.<\/p>\n

I stitch a sturdy belt with pockets<\/p>\n

to hold the jewels.<\/p>\n

During air-raids, it is easy to tie the belt<\/p>\n

around my waist and<\/p>\n

run into the air shelter<\/p>\n

with my family.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now I ask my husband<\/p>\n

if he can wear the belt<\/p>\n

during the next air raid.<\/p>\n

It is still night when<\/p>\n

the sirens sound<\/p>\n

for the fourth time.<\/p>\n

Wearily we get up<\/p>\n

and trudge into the shelter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The all-clear sounds, we crawl out.<\/p>\n

Something is awry with my husband.<\/p>\n

I look closely and am horrified.<\/p>\n

My husband has slept with the belt<\/p>\n

around his waist.<\/p>\n

Half asleep,<\/p>\n

he thinks he\u2019s wearing the sarong.<\/p>\n

He is standing stark naked<\/p>\n

under the bright moonlight,<\/p>\n

with only the jewelry belt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fortunately, the war ends soon after.<\/p>\n

At every air raid,<\/p>\n

our children look at their father<\/p>\n

and collapse with laughter,<\/p>\n

regardless of the falling bombs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0No. 10 – The Jewelry Belt By Nandhini G. Natarajan   We dread moon-lit nights. They always bring the bombers. This is the third time tonight we are running into the bomb shelter. My skin around my stomach is chaffed because of the heavy jewel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95984"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96028,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95984\/revisions\/96028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}