by Babitha Marina Justin

When he met me after long, 

he looked at me and said: 

                         your teeth are thorns, 

                         your eyes sink into their orbs, 

                         they hold a thimbleful oil, 

                         like an ancient brass-lamp, he lit once.  

We sipped the sin of  

cold-pressed carrot juice, 

I felt the soft cushions 

of my tummy, resting on my thighs 

a pair of breasts will join them soon 

to celebrate gravity. 

Creases ploughed into 

my flesh, I mapped his 

thinning hair, his chest of silver sickles 

shone many half-moons to me. 

I flickered, 

feeling the feeble flapping of 

a moon-tide on my belly-shores. 

My light snapped 

with the copper-dust under my soles, 

gravity spread its feet 

into the secret of growing ancient  

with a golden flickering flame. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Babitha Marina Justin is an Associate Professor in English, a poet and an artist from Kerala, India. A Pushcart Prize nominee in 2018, her poems and short stories have appeared in many journals like Eclectica, Esthetic Apostle, The Paragon Press, Fulcrum, The Scriblerus, Trampset, Constellations, etc. She has published two collections of poems, Of Fireflies, Guns and the Hills (2015) and I Cook My Own Feast (2019).  

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