July 13, 2012, Assam, Guwahati
No sooner    she forgets
     than   she     sees   herself
again    and again,    outside
    the pub    twenty-plus   men
teasing  her   like they would
a caged animal,
Hydra hands   tearing off
       her panties,  her shirt,
       black horizontal bar
across  buttocks     and breasts
           the    only     cover.
Close up,   her face    dissolves     into   blank   squares. She   does   not   know   anymore            who    she     is . She clutches     the   remote       but   cannot     stop Ravan’s ten thousand mouths        from   devouring her.
~ Athena Kashyap
Athena Kashyap’s first book, ‘Crossing Black Waters’, was a finalist in the Stephen F. Austin State University Press poetry awards, and published by them in Austin, Texas in 2012. Her second book, ‘Sita of the Earth and Forests’, is forthcoming in 2014, and will be published also by SFA Press. She currently makes her home in Bangalore, India where she teaches English writing and literature to college students and whoever else is interested.Â
Featured artwork: ‘Wound’, by Ahsan Masood.
