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| MANNEQUIN AU MUSÉE BOURDELLE, Marie Lise Babu, 2019 |
Pink
You are shirking your responsibility as a woman
if you don’t, sometimes, wear high heels, do your
hair and wear a bit of pink.
–Isaac Mizrahi, Fashion Designer
brings me hurrying in bare minimum
And he stands there, the god almighty,
all dressed up in expensive silks
It was no wardrobe malfunction
my torn nighty, untidy hair,
does my mouth smell?
did I wash between legs?!
Why are we discussing some
godforsaken seminar, goofed up by some
good-for-nothing idiot, who should have been kicked out
but was given a promotion and an award too?
The coffee comes to the rescue
and the mug is big enough but
allows an unintentional touch and then
everything changed
That carpet, the windowsill, the afternoon sun
that blaring music from the next door
cart vendors calling out fresh tomatoes
Nothing was pink.
He mouthed an impromptu poem
on my brown lips,
my flat feet and of course
on my thick dark eyelashes.
Translated from original Kannada by the poet
Defining pleasure
If you are searching for that poem written especially for you,
you must remember that
writing a poem is like drinking coffee
brewing, filtering, whitening, and sweetening
precedes consuming
which is what happens in courting
But then drinking coffee is like making love
hot yet not scalding
sweet but not too much.
Enough but not unlimited.
Now, if you are thinking what I am thinking
let’s have some coffee.
Vacation
The fish at the pond were a surprise;
Didn’t expect such abundance.
The snake in the grass evoked a hearty laugh;
What did it symbolise for the modernist?
The golden sunset was a perfect backdrop.
Someone had made a proper bed;
Fresh sheets tend to have an allure
God, when was it, the last time?
To get under the shower and get ready
was a pretext. You went for a drink at the bar
and I stepped out onto the lawn to speak to the fish.
When we finally met in bed
I didn’t notice the lipstick mark on your shirt collar
and you didn’t bother about the grass in
my dishevelled hair.
What an orgy it was!
Lost
You know every detail.
The black mole on my back
the small scar behind the left ear
the thumb with a nail lost.
You recognise every single curve
the silky smoothness
even in the dark.
You did not know...
when my sighs burned down the roof
when I crossed the seven seas
buried in your hug
when I just slipped away, vanished
while I kept kissing you...
You did not know.
The Shadow of a Crow
The shadow in the shopping window shows a crow
The nude mannequin is untouched by the crow's beak
She is not tickled. Nor does she make any effort
to pull up the sheet
there is nothing to cover. The artist left out the details.
The display boy hugs and dresses her up
like she can feel
his erection but sorry, no wetness,
she is dry right through.
It’s important for him to place the price tag prominently.
It’s a sale. Discount is the order of the day.
If you don’t get a butter-fry
piece of meat you only have to pick at
the toes made of the paper mâché and
it is at that exact moment that the shadow
of the crow disappears and the glass-eyed
mannequin stares back
with her fixed smile and the crow is
not interested anymore.
How?
Did I unwind all of my
binding six yards
carefully chosen by him
like a snake uncoiling?
Did I reveal in a careless
or calculated casualness
the unmentionable?
Then how come you know
of all the bruises and black marks
on all my most intimate parts
hidden well under the six yards?
I don't know, but why did you,
didn't you, by the end of the second cup
tremble, remembering a woman in rage?
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