Poem

Michelle Cahill

Side by side

PĀRVATĪ IN DARLINGHURST

So I lay on the body of a pale Shiva. He spoke
not a word, bothered perhaps by my nut-brown
skin, my slow dance calmed his electro shuffle.
A slap of limbs pinned him down to my earth.
I hadn’t bathed in sandalwood, flouting legend
with a preference for Estée Lauder. The moon’s
crescent tangled my hair, my breasts were bare,
our timing synchronised. Night fizzed, vanishing
into day, the club’s hypnotic rhythms subdued.
We scorned the Purānas, our tryst no Himalayan
cave, but a hotel bed I had draped with stockings,
lingerie, and the crystal ice of a Third Eye. I admit
that’s why I spoke with the speed of an antelope.
It seems the acharyas were mistaken: I hadn’t
dated for marriage or adultery, nor with a wish
to deck his house with flowers or sweep his floors.
I am too busy, I declared, for dalliance or abstract
gossip. I have no interest in honeybees and birds.
All I wanted was a good time. I swear as the river
is my sister, that this guy was not my sun or my sky.
No way did it even enter my mind to have his kids.
His first wife’s ashes are scattered all over the city.
Goddamn it, Shiva is a walking disaster; whatever
he touches burns. Restraining him with handcuffs
I said, ‘Listen babe, your lingam and my yoni are
made for one thing only, improper and unchaste.
It’s little more than conjecture to think our sweaty
helix could ever be whole.’ Then I offered to grind
and gyrate him silly, suspend our want indefinitely,
and he fell utterly silent with this new meaning.