What the breast remembers
Gowri N. Kishore
An accidental brush.
The first flush of heat.
The quick reddening of cheeks.
A gaze unmet, a back turned.
A pace quickened, a thousand tumultuous thoughts in the head.
A stranger’s pinch.
The first encounter with a
loveless touch.
The quivering fury of bruised nipples.
Hot tears behind burning eyelids.
Bowed head and salty cheeks.
An old lover’s touch.
A gentle awakening.
Sighs and smiles
and the comfort of routine.
A baby’s breath.
And greedy, suckling lips.
The dull throb of giving.
And the unfamiliar heaviness of loving.
My breasts grow heavy
with the weight of memory.
Breathless, breathless,
my body shivers.
Reckless, reckless,
my heart whispers.
--
Gowri grew up in a seaside town in Kerala, India but calls the urban sprawl of Bangalore home. Her works have been published in Kitaab, Huffington Post, Bengaluru Review, Indian Express, Deccan Herald, Women’s Web, and Reading Hour. She is a recipient of the President of India’s Balsree Honor for excellence in Creative Writing and a winner of the Elle Fiction Awards 2013. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies by Pageturners and Random House India. She blogs on https://gowrink.wordpress.com.