Pygmalion in a Supermarket 


The shopping list pressed 
between the folded fluorescent 
	notes is fragrant in ways 

only a memory of being loved can be 

I write the ingredients in secret:
	A detour — before 
	I can name 
you who picked 
a strand of hair from my sweater

	with a tenderness only an old, frayed friendship
	can afford to 

And I was blessed—
	to stand next to my beloved shoulder-to-shoulder
as the waves of warmth whisper 
	a truth unaware and I tremble 

This scent — 

What alchemy is it: a Jungian synchronicity
two noble elements, inert — erupt 
					together 

					to disrupt 
			           the shelf on aisle 5 
and I’m on the floor trying 
		to scoop
		up every olfactory clue 

		to excavate an image (of you)
		from my hippocampal grooves

Isn’t it arduous to reproduce 
		        		a copy
        		of unrequited love 
when the periwinkles in my backyard
continue to bloom?

***

Origin Myth (or How I came to be)

I was not born 
from fire nor did a farmer 
find me in a furrowed 
field 
my name

did not find itself surfing 
on my parents’ cerebral folds in crevices 
of the unconscious —

Once I wasn’t there then 
I was.

The possibilities moved in 
		and out of frame:
names of characters 
from epics who endure 
	             would ensure a future 

or perhaps 
an ancestor or a leader from 
a war-torn country in the Middle East

Then, an epiphany 
		at the moment of enrolment 

Three syllables —
(a)nd it begins 
(mu)ll it over: “embrace wil–
(lya)?”

Now when I play with words 
and makeup worlds 
		she wishes I had 
his name, the serpent king —
Ta-ksha-(ka), only one of his kind. 


It doesn’t matter, I tell her, 
whether I’m priceless or a survivor 

		We would be burnt anyway and 
                          
  I’m the leftover.
                
***           

Anatomy of the Female Body

Let it be known: 
After scores of generations,
Great-great-great-great-granddaughters of 
                 Eve finally found 
themselves 
in medical schools:
		mending and bending
		bones and tissues
When they stood 
		in front of mirrors 
		next to the men masters 
and gatekeepers 
of human knowledge 
they had no inkling of the
	     flowers behind 
	     the swell in their breasts
A pair blessed – 
	by the twins, Ashwini Devatès
	with nodes of milk 
It isn’t a magic trick 
	but unravelling of it:

Casually lifting 
up the
	God’s curtain 
emptying his hat.