Requiem For An Unknown Tigress Cub

still the climbing green lianoid lass her tender tendrils torn massive metal lying like a cutlass in her lap forlorn finger on trigger still the wetness thighs eyes the breasts peaking the quick quelling blushing frenzy the slightly forwardthrusting awkward turgidness of the torso the stalk-neck craning a young pallid green palmyra on the thrust the dusky knuckly fingers strict and bony quivering the gangly gait now stiffening and within alert grasp an AK-47 rounds of bandolier bullets nipping her nipples fatigues for jungle sarees loose silk anklelength skirts over rough cotton jodhpurs rubbery canvas shoes for Ali Baba leather sandals sandalwood clogs the loin-length sesame-oiled tresses severed at the shoulders the rationed tampax crushed in the back jodhpur pocket the drilled march still aching in the pelvic girdle the shoulder blades too tendon-strained streaky shark’s fins her mind on her mother’s diurnal diabetic needle and the relief the dowry promised to the boy next door the lightly tripping fiesta truant feeling a matinee show the classes well the classes but for the maths teacher she was just then getting on the mend her mind shutting out the homely odour of steaming puttu and cambal itiyappam and coti rasam and rice the rat-a-tat of sudden staccato fire the screaming blinding flash of shells the dirgeful thudthud of bursting bombs the grating crackling of armoured car chains and the distant muffled blasts droning planes swooping the bark and shriek of schrapnel... then the raspy clipped yelp of the platoon commander ends her reverie her face crushed against a mound of freshturned sod her right knee twisted trapped in the hunched cavern of her pubertally pulpy belly the breath expelled in an urgent wheezing crushed moan the last stifled desperate cry for her long distraught mother (© T.Wignesan – Paris, May 1st., 1997 ; rev. 2012 ; from the collection : Words for a Lost Sub-Continent, 1999.)