Love = A half eaten salami sandwich

Still Life by A.K. Ramanujan

When she left me
after lunch,I read
for a while.
But I suddenly wanted
to look again
and I saw the half-eaten
sandwich,
bread,
lettuce and salami,
all carrying the shape
of her bite.

When reading indian poetry translated,

such crude economy of words,

and to the point pauses,

makes you wonder, if the ghost of  Mr. J. Alfred Prufrock

entered them in victorian times,

and then refused to take leave,

or that maybe translation can do horrendous things

to an otherwise impactful text.

Or Is biased readership then to blame

for the opinion, that men, more so Indian

do often write, with an economy of words,

that often reduces 

a feeling worth a month of  essay writing,

to a mere bite mark on a salami and lettuce sandwich....