Amour

By Nithya Mariam John

Amour

Search for vacant spaces in your beloved’s eyes.

No, you won’t find those easily.
Like the young ones under a hen’s wings,
she hides her emptiness beneath her eyelids,
which never forgets how you kissed the eyebrows, once upon a time.

If you look deeply into the wells of her resonating laughter,
you can draw waters of bare desires and deferred passions.
You are never blamed for the act, neither is she guilty of it --
 being blank, is not sinful.
It lies like an open wound, gaping at the skies,
eclipsed by the penetrating sun.

Kiss the hollowness gently,
but never try to step in.

Please watch the barrenness from afar,
do not barge inside, nor scar her privacy,
with your sharp tongue.
For if you do,
she may let you in,
but you will always be the unwelcomed thief, 
who’d robbed her of the last inch of the planet,
which she had painfully reserved for herself.

Dr. Nithya Mariam John is a teacher, poet , editor,  translator and critic with three published collections of poetry and an anthology. Her works have appeared in Kendra Sahitya Akademi’s Journal of Indian Literature, Malayalam Literature Survey, Muse India, Indian Ruminations and Samyukta Poetry. She podcast eight episodes titled ‘Torn Pages of a Diary’ during the pandemic year 2020. She blogs at Mizhi (nmjs.in). email : nithyamariam@gmail.com 

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