Pygmalion in a Supermarket and Other Poems: Amulya B

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.

***