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.
