Courtesan - Maa

Tranquil undulation of thin silver anklet,

Slithered down the flakes of perspiration, tenderly.

Wrist serrated by gold bangles,

Tender convexity of the mole,on her chin.

Her high arched gelid feet.

Her faltering steps.

Her torn skin.

Her wrinkles.

Her bemused glabella and furrowed brows.

Gentle zephyr tossed the locks,

Misting her eyes.

She tucked in the loose strands,

Only for it to flop again.

Living in the ghettos, 

Dancing in the brothels,

Carousal, pirouette and hobnobbing in négligée,

Along the the baritone voices,

to lure menfolk.

Beseeching for work, at every threshold,

To whisk aside her knee-deep destitution.

Rushed to the temple on a windy night,

to hold God accountable for all her

misery.

Bouten, were razed by the orthodox ecclesiastical.

Wiping away tears with the corner of her saree, that welled behind her eyelids.

Her betel dyed lips looked blanched.

Draped the chamois chikankari,

to veil her vitiligo struck limbs.

Sanguine-fluid mired ears,

heard only the opprobrium hurled at her.

Clink-clank of the spoon, ladles and saucers;

Articulated her inner disgust and agony.

For, her voice was throttled.

Rushed to the temple on a windy night,

to hold God accountable for all her 

misery.

Scraped the bottom of the kadhai to plant the last morsel on her child’s plate,

Even as she goes hungry for days. 

Separated from her child, will inevitably, 

Have her ears perk up and her heart flutter .

Whenever she senses that her child is in danger.

Fighting many personal battles,

every trial and tribulation .

Yet, resilient enough to do it all alone.

To bring up her child.

Ever smiling, always approachable, 

Best friend to her child.

Pigeons coo'd,

Furiously scrabbling,

with their hooked claws and gluttonous beaks,

To lacerate the flesh from her bone.

Their greed was monstrous.

So, was the community's.

She was bitten,

by thousands of pismire, 

Leaving her ; bleeding in gelid.

Her wrinkled skin caressed the child.

Her incinerated physiognomy sweeped aside all hardships,

Whipped away all haplessness,

hovering over the child.

Her benevolent self screeched "I shall protect thou ".

Societal scaffold stripped her off dignity.

Hurled abuses against her.

Castrated from the community.

Sweeped aside,

for her vocation, was considered a "moral cancer".

Marooned in the cruel chateau.

Her tachycardiac-heart ached.

Laboured sound of her redolent breath,

snarled at the throat, with some catarrh.

Descrying for penumbral shard

to nurse her child.

Compassionate glint in her eyes, 

glistened and grinned like a cheshire-cat;

whilst caressing her child.

Her benevolent self screeched, "Thou are my child".

Brushing aside the societal astern cry.

She breathed her last.