In the Edit Suite
by Aparna Nandakumar


Cut out against the blue screen
of reported gossip,
I see her tall, dark figure:
alone, unafraid
of my gaze.

I press a key
and roll in a new background.
She now stands
in front of a neat by-lane,
surrounded by vegetable sellers,
a digital cabbage in her hands.

In the edit suite of my imagination,
I know she is vulnerable.
I can morph off her clothes
and make her kiss
the man I love
to indulge myself
in an orgasm of tears.

But all I do
is cut and paste
behind her left ear
a large red blossom.

It matches with her red dress
and my red, red heart.






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