Mannequins

 

I am getting old,  naked

Eyes cannot focus sharp.

I said, ‘Excuse me’ to a mannequin

That stood on the doorstep of a shop

And blushed to realize that I had talked

To a lifeless doll.

Strolling, alone, through  busy streets

With full of clothes and jewelry shops

Ravenous, I peek at the ravishing

Papier-mâché or plastic or something else

Mannequins that man the entrances.

I like these new ones, what grace,

How lovely, live, how curvaceous are they!

That subtle lift of the breasts, tantalizing,

Teasing you, inside the scanty clothes,

Slim waists with a delicious hint

Of flat, smooth bellies and button.

One can always act as if

Appreciating the modern dresses

While swallowing, ogling hungrily

Wishing the dolls were real.

The mannequins,  in their eternal youth

Don't look at you

But through you, to far away

As if looking in askance why

Life was not blown into them.

Strolling, aimless, through the busy streets

Full of clothes and jewelry shops

I look appreciatively at the young girls passing by

The foreign tourists scantily dressed

Their shimmering golden thighs

Heavy, full breasts and shapely behinds

All for a connoisseur to admire and enjoy.

They don't look at me, but look

Through me, glancing hither and thither

In search of life, pleasure and love.

Youth, for now, for now only, though it seems

Eternal to them.

I slink into the dark corner of a little shop

Lighting a cigarette, realizing that 

for all I care,

The world could be full of mannequins only. 

*********  Balachandran V, Alappuzha, 25.11.2011