Image courtesy Google.

Poetry  by Gayatri Chawla

 

Hyperopia
Outside my window cornflower sky,
persian blue pottery on my kitchen sill
wall mount painting of baby Krishna
turquoise skirt flitting on the clothesline
indigo computer screen blinking in solitude
bluish purple bruises glowing in the dark.
**

Concealer

She glances at her exquisite gold watch
it’s way past supper time
The LCD is blaring away like a
loquacious loudspeaker at a railway station
The fancy woman on T.V. in her fancy pants
opens her glossy seductive mouth
The screen is a battlefield of estrogen
hormones pacing up and down
flying high like a fish-tailed kite.
Behind the hijaab she’s breaking into a sweat
droplets of shimmering diamonds collecting on her brow.
Her twenty-four karat necklace
looks like a double tier choker
choking her with its ugly social stigma
She’s a fish out of water
Her throat is dry, dry like the land she lives in
The winds are blowing in all the wrong directions
The fancy woman in her fancy pants
is selling a new fairness product
It’s an one way ticket to flawless skin
The commercial goes;
‘Buy now and say good-bye to marks and dark circles’
From behind the hijab she thinks
‘Will it conceal last night’s bloody scars?’

**

Gayatri Chawla is a mumbai based, award winning, widely published poet and author of Invisible Eye.