My Delicate Little Bone China Love Poem by Raj Verma

sea turtles have soft
pink and purple bottoms
beneath hardboiled exteriors

my little bone china love
i know how much it hurt you
so much that you could not trust
your lips to whisper the pain
and instead
let it die in a silent scream

i also know that after the hurting
came the rage
at not being able to hurt

and then despair
ebon black rippling muscles
digging nails of agony
with diamond tipped precision
deep down into the pinkness
of nerve ends exploding in pain

pain transcends itself
into a numbness
albeit shortlived
till the next black wave
sweeps the relief of numbness
into another dimension of pain

my little bone china love
you remember the sea turtles
who paid obeisance to our love

the fishermen got to them
netted them
tied their feet together
turned their pink underbellies to the sun
and left them to thrash on the beach
till the next bus
to the meat market came by

and do you remember the gentle waves
the ones that nibbled our toes
and proffered twin seashells
locked in delicate embrace

the fishermen got to them also
snapped them in two
looking for what kept them together

maybe it was only the sea
soft inside its giant ubderbelly
where the gentle waves came from

some waves transform themselves
into hesitant walls of controlled fury
from where
they are inexorably drawn
into the desperation of their death throes
as they pound the beach
looking for what kept them together

love can only transcend itself
into its twin dimension of hate

my delicate little bone china love

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from the book ' the equations of love " by Raj Verma
published by WRITERS WORKSHOP 1981