Margins, Ma(I)nstream Poem by Rukmini Bhaya Nair

A woman is a thing apart.
She is bracketed off, a
Comma, semi-colon, at most
A lower-case letter, lost.

In the literate circus
She is just a striptease
Artist, but when she speaks
Her poems bite, ferocious.

Rhyme and shape, primitive
Beasts, come tamed to her
Endangered species, they
Recognise her desperation.

She wants, she badly wants
Not a fresh lover, strongman
Or clown, but a new language
In which to hold her own.