By: Shriram S

Vyasa should have had a palm
the size of fully grown maple leaves.

When cupped together,
his palms could have had a stunted forest
under their penumbra.

That is if he had held red soil on the land
of his hands.

But he had chosen red ochre instead,
red ochre from cave floor
a handful – his handful –
of frangipani seeds
a wooden bowl of river water;

and allowed them to mix:
the red pores of ochre
giving way to the white particles
of crushed frangipani seeds
inside the infinite continuum
of colourless water spaces,

an ink
for his thoughts growing on the
penumbra of his mind:
of the great war.

And in his ink,
long before Parikshit died,
when one of his ancestors ejaculated
on a banana leaf: a bright blue
semen sat like a centipede
on the parched yellow skin of the leaf.

And when Draupadi was disrobed,
Krishna gave her sheets of saris
in all colours except red.

Though not a single sheath of sword.

But when the snake fell out of fruit
long after the last sword had fallen,
it was the fruit that rotted first.