Cigarette butts
squeezed out, tar
ejaculate on
the marble floor
we were talking
around laptops
six websites open
white screen
exhibition
my friend happy
with government
decision that
put a stop to
institutionalized
consumption of
women’s bodies.
I pulled out
my spongy pair
of gloves, boxers
gladiators and
Ultimate Fighters;
kinesthetic acumen
wrestled
intellectual might
in a Green Park
flat turned cast
iron battlecage
superstructure
of human dignity
labour laws and
gender inequality.
My argument
really was people
eat, sell, cheat
torture, eat why
interfere with
perversion
and draw it out
to the streets?
You don’t place
whiskey next to
water at general
stores, people won’t
drink – my friend
gave last thrust
stroked his hair
and strode off to
get his. Breathless
in the darkness
between sheets
I was glad they
didn’t ban poetry so
I could spill this
one out: now let me
see you get off.
* * *
Karthik Purushothaman took three years to formally make the transition from aerospace engineering to creative writing; from Chennai to New Delhi. In this time, he has written two plays, five short stories, a record’s worth of songs and some poems. He is currently enrolled in the Creative Writing MFA at Minnesota State University, Mankato, commencing Fall 2015.
