Old

Finally, I can stop smiling

and own my frowning caprice.

Ignored my most, I bask

in the poetry of my invisibility.

With undyed hair and naked wrinkles

I dare to flaunt my mortality

in the faces of immortality seekers.

Tottering, I am trembling divinity

falling like autumn leaves.

Greying, I am the smoke of pyres

choking the world’s exhibition.

Alone I wander world’s end

a forgotten Goddess with a skull bowl

liberated from the necessity of worship.

Tending to my Body I taste

the tenderness of Her embrace which

endures despite my lifelong indifference.

My first love and my last

my womb and my tomb.

In Her incorrigibility I find

the love I had chased lifelong.

Who knew that in this decrepitude

Deity would reveal as Body’s love

faithfully sculpting my fantasies into flesh.

-Padma Menon