Prathibha Nandakumar Poems

The eyebrows are
someone's underarms
Lips are from an ad for
canned something
...

Did I unwind al of my
binding six yards
carefully chosen by him
like a snake uncoiling?
...

I am no Eve
he is no Adam

No snake, no Eden,
...

Scared, the child asked
`amma, amma, will my cat
eat my rat? '
...

I was all that and suddenly

She appeared at the backyard,
where he spoke his mother’s tongue.
...

Think how many states of being, how many emotions
you go through in the course of a single day. Who are you?

- A K Ramanujan
...

You, who say, have no proper sense of body,
do not wonder if I wondered too
if the pulse you stumbled on were yours or mine
You are no fool
...

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?
...

Halting halfway through stripping
the branded brief he cribbs
about the many folds of the foreskin
extra growth on the chest
...

(A Hindu boy and a Muslim girl eloped and got married and went into hiding. The families hunted them down and killed them both in front of their one year old child. None wanted the child and the police took her into their custody. It caused great public debate)

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