A Courtesan Promotion Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

For a woman to become a harlot,
Her mother must have been precedence
Or penury condition must be the cause
Or she must be the victim of coercion.

I had been forced into prostitution
By my father's enemy as a revenge,
When he abducted me in my teens
And sold me to a brothel house for a sum.

I knew my home I had been brought from.
It could be no task to flee the whore house
And trace out the path to reach my parents.
But it was not before I was outraged.

Whether they would get me as their daughter
When I have been robbed of my modesty
Did not obsess me more than did the thought
That they should not know that I was abused.

Decades have passed; I am a courtesan.
I have grown up in arts, dance and poetry.
I've kept lords with my skills rather than looks.
I am at ease my parents could be no more.
22.06.2016