Nabina Das

In this land dreams invite slaughter. I can see
how we want to meet in the city of hearts. But we
walk like Atwood’s women. All draped, face-shut.
Blank eyes digging holes in the stark ground.
What does a colour mean for us? What warmth it
brings I wonder. The skin of our wishes blue.
The eyes always mint-coin flicker. Hands ashen.
A woman’s body is not a scripture. Hence, shades
are brighter here. It’s about desires, demands
and blood-red hearts that arteries want. No giving up
to fate lines. How can we not see — one by one
the bodies stir in light. Up, up and about they go.
 
All about they go
and see the girdles strip off
breasts become waves. The women
take off their underwear too.
It’s time for a dip in the senses.
Bystanders aim their lenses
henchmen train their whiplashes
The fearful think witches have come.
 
In this land, praises are only for goddesses
sanskar only for the pious. No scope for flesh
to speak. No sidelining the defining rekha
that poor boy Lakshman drew. So let’s fold up
the saffron janeus and let the rivers be open
to only gurgles where you hear women rushing out
women with thighs slapping against the rude tide
women who bite the poison ivy to spit honey
on to the air. Women being women for they don’t
have to be rule-bred, nothing sacred, no ties at all.
 
Then a thousand years pass by our arteries’ throb:
In this scripture, the women rewrite the lines and shloks.