Kamala Das Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

I bought a book written by you,
On whose wrapper your face at sixty,
With a stud on left nostril, the lock
Utter black by dye, in loose knot,
And lips as fleshy as your cheeks,
Stared at me, sultrier than any youth.
How sexier you must have been
A decade ago, two decades back
Or at your thirty, let alone twenty!
How fortunate those must have been,
Who revolved around you then!
How many wooed and how many were voyeurs!

Is it your exceptional intellect
That keeps you alluring?
Is it your matriarchal Clan
That keeps your eyes sensual?
Is it by your sensuous poems
That you look sensual
Or is it by your sensual and sensuous looks
Your writings came to be sensual?
I read your poems sensually
With your sexy figure in thought.
I read your face sensually
With your sexy poems in thoughts.
You or your verses, which tempt more?
‘Age cannot wither her, nor customs stale
Her infinite variety’
8.11.2002