Quaffing doodh patti a la mode

She sat licking thin lips, chin
on upturned palm, elbow on grimy
table, wild riot of rumpled ringlets
framing doe eyed inner sense

I sat shitting briquettes at the thought
of revealing plans for a future
foretold at birth, slurping syrupy
milk-tea from a chipped white saucer



She spoke fervently of a rose tinted
future, and the heartbreak of domestic
servitude seen through the eyes of
an expatriate pappy, tapping out a
tattoo on the dog-eared menu

I joked nervously about being all
you can be in God's holy army,
fighting for righteous cause célèbres
like the recovery of hallowed Kashmir
from perfidious infidel cowboys



She righteously denounced my
“myth-guided neanderthal thanatos,”
pendulous jugs jiggling from side
to side as she hurled taunting
Sieg Heils in my direction, ignoring
wide-eyed, fly-button-feel waiters

I left without looking back and
turned into a pillar of salt on
the fractured sidewalk, until a
passing shower dissolved me into a
piddly little puddle which washed
into the gutter where she says I belong

(minos - december 2006)