Bilkis Jaan

The rapists
Roam free
The women cower
Hide like roaches
Their antenna shaking furiously
With the fear of death.

All it takes
Is another foot
Over their belly
Another hand
Over their mouth
They can’t utter a word
Or a scream anymore.

Metamorphosis

Kafka is half read
The butterfly emerges yet again
Fluttering and kissing
Every leaf and flower
Strewn around
In my garden of hope.

It stops,
Looks intently
Roams around aware
In vain.

Acceptance

I wonder if my manuscript would be accepted
Which will have stories of women
Who know that their bodies are their business.
It has a shelf life like the curd packets
In the supermarket shelves
That once soured won’t be accepted.

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Where they know that the cigarette butt stubbed
On it may fetch extra money
With the customer,
For the waterproof mascara
That mustn’t run down when hurt.

The stories of the drunkard father
Who needed his fix so badly
That he stole the money
From his child’s geometry box,
So he could get the peg.

The woman who put extra salt
In her ailing mother-in-law’s food,
Because she was tired of cleaning
Her shit and was scared to say
The stench stayed in the agarbatti
She lit to the gods asking for
Her mother-in-law’s death
And her salvation.

I Dream

Learning as I go along in life
Love is beautiful even in silence
Love can be cherished
In the other’s absence
Love can be the strength
And as I take my steps
Over the muck
Into the clear stream of logic
I find
Love is also reasonable,
Fair and never a weakness.

Immortality

The Kasturi Mrig
Has no idea
About its musk.
It roams unaware
In the deep jungles,
Doing what
The herd does.

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The sandal tree
Grows in its silence.
Not letting
Anyone know
About her secret fragrance.

On a full moon night,
The Mrig, the sandal tree
Look at each other.
Both sigh together,
Knowing,
Only in death is
Found their fragrance
Their immortality.

Excerpted with permission from If Only It Were Spring Everyday, Mohua Chinappa, Srishti Publishers.