Kutti Revathi is an influential writer in the feminist space in India. Some of her poems, such as Mulaigal (Breasts), have achieved iconic status all over the world. She has edited a magazine called Panikkudam, a literary quarterly for women’s writing. Trained in Siddha medicine, Revathi is also a lyricist and filmmaker and engages actively in issues of caste and violence against women.
Breasts
Breasts are bubbles, rising In wet marshlands I watched in awe — and guarded — Their gradual swell and blooming At the edges of my youth’s season Saying nothing to anyone else, They sing along With me alone, always: Of Love, Rapture, Heartbreak To the nurseries of my turning seasons, They never once forgot or failed To bring arousal During penance, they swell, as if straining To break free; and in the fierce tug of lust, They soar, recalling the ecstasy of music From the crush of embrace, they distill The essence of love; and in the shock Of childbirth, milk from coursing blood Like two teardrops from an unfulfilled love That cannot ever be wiped away, They well up, as if in grief, and spill over
…under close surveillance
By and by, the rivers forget
Their serenades to the heart of this earth
Buildings congeal and harden
Like the stone relief
of an ancient fresco
Drops of human blood
cost less and less these days
Women’s behinds and querulous breasts
are always watched closely
Even the pretty shape of my small crack
is probed with advanced instruments
Homosexuals are hiding inside
the city’s glass-enclosed rooms
On the suspicion that a vestige of life
might still linger, even after burial,
bodies are exhumed
Adult games that children play
are always under surveillance
Translucent lashes of light
are peeled away from green vegetation
Everyone is losing
their personal, intimate secrets
Light prowls like a cat
Opening doors without a sound,
Light puts its hand out (diffidently)
to check whether it’s still raining
Then, finding the rains gone,
Light spreads its wares of shadows
all over the woods; then climbs and perches
above the tent’s facade, to gaze idly at the world
Everywhere on earth, the pretty colours of a cat’s body
When its shadow has begun
to devour itself, Light quickly
descends from the tree; and then leaps
straight to a lamp’s small flame in the alcove
Seated on the back of the night that stands
rigid and erect as a fortress,
Light draws in and makes its own
the great Light of love’s union,
through the moon’s wide eye
Also see:
Kutti Revathi’s poems in Poetry International (2007)
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