Poems by Likhita Das 

When Two Women Love 
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When two women love
the poetry of one will
taste of fruit juices,
the other one’s nights will
be fragrant with elanji flowers.
 
When they touch each other,
they will find the same
patches of burnt flesh
at the same place
same depth and
roasted to the same extent.
 
In the flood of words,
they will caress and heal
all the wounds of memory.
 
When they are in an embrace
the vales of the desert in
their hearts will fill up.
 
One will remind the other
that they must kiss
the fingers first.
In the forefinger of the one
who wrote her until she
matured as a woman,
the other one will hear
the buzz of honeybees.
 
When they exchange sharp glances,
four petals of a frangipani flower
will light up in the moonlight.
 
One will blush redder than the hibiscus.
The other’s heart will gallop faster
than a horses’ hooves.
 
They will sigh together
wishing
that they blossom like an elanji
when they kiss each other,
that one be submerged
in the other’s last poem,
that flowering vines grow
between their fingers ,
that the summer be
on its way out.
 
 
Elanji: The bakul tree, or Spanish cherry. Elenji flowers have a heady fragrance. Malayalis estranged from Kerala feel its nostalgic pull.
 
 
Translated from the Malayalam by Ra Sh
 

Likhita Das teaches journalism. She has published five collections of poetry in Malayalam. 
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Ra Sh (Ravi Shanker N.) is a poet and translator based in Palakkad, Kerala. He has published four collections of poetry, including Architecture of Flesh and Bullet Train and Other Loaded Poems, and a chapbook, In the Mirror, Our Graves, written jointly  with Ritamvara Bhattacharya. He has also published a play titled Blind Men Write. He has translated several Malayalam poems into English and anthologised them in How to Translate an Earthworm.

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