Three poems by Ananya Venkateswaran

Maa Durga, did it / You not ache
to kill a being of your own womb?

as a child, i was scared of Your outstretched tongue,
a thing of bengali masks and puppetry
&certainly not temple, Your blood

dripping down shiny marble and
settling, browned, into some slender crevice–
an accident by some long-gone trembling craftsman,
chisel rough against palm.

the temple dogs would smell ichor,
surely, lap up Your offering before it
mixed with camphor waft &turned to burning flesh.

was Your discus not made of stone?
&what if it were to slip from Your pinky?

would that indent, too, be Divine? / i fear the daughter i may someday have.

the Big Men,
emboldened by
cheap pale ale and
sundown and
the cricket bats they pretend to know how to wield
clang pots and pans and billhooks. they are
Big men, strong as the names on the
flimsy cricket jerseys they flaunt and
strong as the rounds that shoot their eyes bloody and
strong as the bruises ‘round wives’ quivering eyes. they are big
men, and grandfathers and girls alike look down when they pass and
close their windows and their eyes and burrow down in their blankets, ignoring big men,
marching in drunken, teary circles around
a dusty temple with offerings
no god wants.

we are walking barefoot,
heel to tar & paan & dust
like pilgrims. postured in humility
like we seek grace & light.

ReligiousDogmanot like we will fight for view of vallaku
not like we left our shoes behind
because of petty fear of unholy theft.