Hello Hello!! After a year's absence, I am back. PhD submitted. Viva awaited. Huge 3 lakh word PhD thesis submitted, equal to three theses. 

The anthology I mentioned in the last post never came out because the editor was publicly accused of sexual harassment. 

But, as I mentioned, the poem was earlier published in an Assamese LGBT newsletter called Xukia (The Forbidden) , so I am putting it up here now anyway. 

Learning to Wear a Mekhala Sador

If I stand lean limbed

slim waisted, dry skinned

bare skinned at my stomach

in a petticoat and

a blouse that fits just so.

If there were swathes

of a rich gorgeous orange around us

like the one you wore that day,

outstanding against your dark skin

and mine. If you were to tuck my mekhala in,

wrapping it round me like a skirt

your slim cool fingers tickling, teasing my skin

deliciously. If you were to then

make the pleats, asking me to hold

one end of that brilliant orange

to tuck the sador into the mekhala,

wrapping it round appropriately

in your graceful graceful way

giving me a full bodice

of that luxuriant orange.

In other words, if you were to teach me

how to wear a mekhala sador

Wouldn’t it be love(r)ly   

And then, if you were to wear one too?