“The full moon has never been as lustful or as full of sneer
Since ‘He’ left our town and my heart
Ensconced in the sanctum of that old dilapidated shrine up in the hill
Ever since that night when I had used the full moon as my rotund headrest
The Moon is no longer as magnificent and has lost it’s sheen
‘He’ had led me up there, clambering fast over those gigantic loose boulders
‘He’ a mountain dweller as lithe as his mountain goats
Faster than my protests and my indrawn breaths
Carrying me light as a spring breeze, in step with his lithe pace
As I left the safety of the mud road to the village
far below appearing like my twisted ribbon, undone and dusty
The twilight soon was a thick velvety ink
I hadn’t realized I would soon be diving
Into it’s dense cover to secure my modesty
The autumn Sun having blazed it’s way yonder beyond the hill
As though a last warning to desist and return to the safety of my hut
But who could resist the pull of his eyes
The yearning stronger than returning high tide
I found my palm frail held firmly in his large calloused ones
And knew not whose heart beat louder, his or mine or both in unison
Like the temple drums stretched taut and jumping high with each frenzied whipping
On top of the hill, the shrine was very unlike its stature in daylight
The crumbling ceiling and half fallen pillars served whole new purposes
With a welcoming sigh as we stepped on to the cold stone porch
Bending soft starlight through its cracks and gaps
The limestone ledges made hard couches to catch my bent backside
I tried to merge myself in the shifting shadows behind the stone carvings
Who themselves seemed to manifest dancing triplicates
Scooting about, butterflies let loose on the wizened walls
Making the corridors & hallways of the shrine their dancing stages
With the ever-present Moon providing luminescent spotlight
They wore a smile, an expression all knowing
As though they had seen it all before enacted by lovers of yore
All I remember of the night is the full moon at eye level
Peering in through the filigree stone windows
Oogling the entwined Jasmine trellis that wound up the courtyard pillars
My charade at hide and seek was a game in vain
The moon helped him by lighting up every nook & corner of my joints
I found myself tickled by the soft down of his hard chest
And till today I seem to be sneezing with allergic reflex
Having inhaled the musty scent of manly labour
As ‘He’ set about counting mustard goosebumps sprawled on my skin
If only someone could rescue my veil carelessly flung on the arched limb of a stone carving
I tell you my friend the Moon has lost it’s sheen
Ever since my rendezvous last Full Moon in that broken old Hosur hill shrine”
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