I admit this one is new to me

[ritaxis]

So I decided to spend at least part of the month looking for poets I don't know. Sometimes I do a search for a couple of qualifiers. This time it was "Indian woman poet" becuase I don't think I know any.

When I read about Arundhathi Subramaniam in Wikipedia, I wasn't expecting to like any of her poems, becaquse I expected them to be spiritually oriented and I'm rarely (not never) interested in that sort of poem. But this one is funny and I like it.

From here.

5:46, Andheri Local

by Arundhathi Subramaniam

In the women's compartment
of a Bombay local
we seek
no personal epiphanies.
Like metal licked by relentless acetylene
we are welded—
dreams, disasters,
germs, destinies,
flesh and organza,
odours and ovaries
A thousand-limbed
million-tongued, multi spoused
Kali on wheels.

When I descend
I could choose
to dice carrots
or a lover
I postpone the latter.