The Morning After

Like a snake,

the night sneaked

into the burrow of oblivion,

leaving behind trails of 

fading purple that slowly

gave into a dim orange.

 

And now the sky looks

as if it has borrowed its hues

from the smudged kumkum

that adorns Her breasts.

 

The breasts are marked.

The previous night they were

marked with rich patterns

drawn with fine kumkum, and

this morning, with tiny crescents

(where His nails had dug into).

 

Faintly aware of the new morning, 

wrapped in the haze of memories

from the previous night,

She blinks and yawns,

fighting back the torpor, 

with a delicate stretch of hands  

(the fabric of time and space

 contracts and expands!).

 

Her locks, curly and black,

dishevelled as they are,

with lose mogra flowers

tangled in them here and there,

look ravishing. 

(Last night He had knitted

 these flowers in her braid.)

 

The surroundings look cluttered:

disarrayed garments (that had been carefully 

chosen the night before); the lose and 

scattered pearls that, till the last night,

had strung and swung on her bosom;

a forlorn flute and a few ruffled peacock feathers.

 

He is lying next to her.

His eyes, like the petals of a blooming lotus,

underlined with thick lashes, still closed. 

His eyelids are stained with the red

of her lips and her lips stained with

the black of his kohl.

 

On his nether lip sits a bite-mark

(She smiles shyly as she observes it);

the tilak mark on his forehead is half erased;

the pleats of his turban lose, almost about to come off.

 

His nearly undone turban is crimson-stained. 

She looks at it, confused, then, images flash in her head:

He is decorating her lotusy feet with mahaavar. 

She giggles when He praises his own artistry. 

He brushes her feet gently,

making her slightly giddy and tickly.

 

And He then implores her to place her right foot

on his forehead right betwixt his eyebrows. 

Reluctantly, she complies. 

Something like an electric current tunnels through him

the moment her sole touches his forehead. 

(Galaxies are shuffled;

 they spin and collide, 

forming galactic vortexes !)

 

He pulls it down slowly, 

feeling its softness and warmth on his face, 

and sucks her toe for while, 

before bringing it further down

and placing it on his broad chest 

and pressing her sole hard against it,

lost in divine ecstasy. (New universes are born!)

 

She had closed her eyes,

for she could not have dared to witness

the sacrilege, although she was the very instrument of it.

A moan escapes her lips (there come the Vedas!).

 

Now reminiscing about it,

in this serene dawn, 

she cannot seem to gather the details of what followed.

There were only signs and imprints

left now to tell the tale:

her body was now smeared with the chandan 

He had worn last night, and his body

had trails of scented unction that

She had anointed herself with.