Binu Karunakaran writes

The Washerwoman

Fused to a corner of the washing stone, the

yellow soap cake looks a stamp-sized photo

of the sun. Sticky note affixed to a black pulpit,

aiding cats in their quick effortless climb,

walking-sermon over the wall’s elevated

fault lines & the light’s scattered fish bones.

The washerwoman arrives after the crack

of the dawn's dewy whip. Her load: a bucket

full of bleeding clothes, pack of detergent

and bottled blue prayers of wispy indigo.

An actor of great beauty, she rehearses her lines,

Switching with ease the roles of a gentle masseur

working lather out of soap & water and a thug-

fanatic clubbing her other to accustomed death.


 (From the anthology ' A Strange Place Other than Earlobes' by five Indian poets @litemeter)