The Meeting Poem by Prathibha Nandakumar

It took me three weeks to get him to agree
for a meeting at the most public coffee house and
He walked in late with a careless
Have you been waiting long?

I could hardly get to say yes, his attention was drawn
towards the slim trim young thing and said he wanted to go and
by the way, I must mind my language, learn some manners and
definitely take care to watch my tongue
and what the hell did I want to talk to him about?

I returned home to a book shelf full of centipedes and
I crushed them all under my thick heals of black shoes
wondering at their thousand legs that looked hand crafted
all most like my burnt thighs resembling the work of an FX guy
that I never dared to let him caress
covered carefully under expensive silks.