Visalakshi-2 Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Her husband died of a car accident.
It took place about three years ago.
Now she is free of encumbrances.
Hence I could talk to her as freely as
I did fifty two years back in her village
Where I met her, where we fell for each other.
I managed to get her phone number.

The last meeting of us was in her house
With her spouse, some twenty years ago.
She has married seven years after
Our episode, in the year I married,
Both being unaware of each other.
I saw her there after thirty two years
By when a lemon skinned beauty queen
Has turned into a dry skinned wrinkles.

I got her over phone and shared her grief.
She was upset, implying her bond with him.
She declined my offer of any meeting,
However incidental it might be.
‘Let us forget ours as a child game
With no renewal at this stage and age’
She said. Anxiety driven, she enquired
About me and family and my life.

Now she is seventy and weak as she told.
She is as old as me who am still robust.
It means we both were sweet seventeen
When we loved each other that went to
Being together with clothes stripped of
In her bolted room with a resolution
To elope, till we were caught red handed.
How quick a woman vomits her ex lover!
24.06.2010