The Company of Women

Sarah’s cupboard is filled to the brim
With lipsticks, Satins, Lotions and Leathers.
The drawers resemble the French Fondue
Garnished with Green Sapphires and rarest Rubies.
Curious costumiers are parading in her mansion
Carrying the log of Oriental textiles.
Suddenly the bell rang and the postman
Presented a letter to the tinsel lassie.
The scroll pronounced the demise of her kinsman;
Each word seemed to choke her sculptured throat;
She walked towards the cramped bed
With trembling legs and moist eyes.
As she lifted her saddened neck up,
She saw the mocking mirror gazing at her cheeks.
The natural tone of her skin became
The subject of the brutal burlesque.
Her sobs grew louder and louder;
She threw herself on the couch
Drank a glass of wine, reapplied rogue
And walked towards the swimming pool.

Ballerina Isabella no more lives with her parents;
Her new found nest is a dance studio
Where she drenches herself in the tune of opera.
Her torn ballet shoes sing the story of the toil;
It took her four months to perfect her Grand Jeté;
The rusted barré has bruised her thighs but not her feet.
She continues to enhance the picturesque arabesque;
The costume for the Swan Lake Performance has arrived.
But the pleated skirt fails to seduce her mind
As she tries to execute the Pirouette with one leg in attitude.
Ruksaar has spent sleepless nights for her magnum opus;
Black coffee, recycled sheets and inks have become her mates.
The story of her novel revolves around
The two Hindu lesbians who fake to be heterosexuals
In order to survive in the hypocritical society.
Her widowhood has never deterred the artist in her;
Harassments, seductions and molestations
Have consolidated her belief in her pen;
Many hate her atheist tongue; but she wishes to write
Until the apolitical paper refuses to mate with the ink.

Devyani glows in the grandeur of her wedding attire;
She flaunts her engagement ring with innocence divine;
Her friends tease her by the name of her fiancée
And she in reply, blatantly discloses
Her plans for her exotic honeymoon.  
Ramya returns home with a tensed look;
The pain of her bankrupt husband torments her;
Friend have turned a deaf ear to her cries
And banks have refused to accept her old, bridal jewelry.
But she stands by her husband to save the ancestral property.

These ladies belong to the Company of Women.
Some of them are condemned for their rebellious disposition
And even branded as sluts and whores;
The delicate ones are seen as dumb damsels;
Looser is the title given to the accommodating type;
The feminine visionaries are admonished gypsies
Each of them might be salty, sweet, bitter or spicy.
But their distinct tastes have the power
To tickle the taste buds of the masculine gourmets.