Remembering Dilip (Chitre)
KANKANA BASU
Photo: R. Ragu
There are berets and berets...
Why do you wear berets?
I ask
(Audacity goes down well
With the poet
I'm told,
Especially
When it comes
From women)
Is it to hide
A balding pate
Cheat the calendar
Or charge
A flagging libido?
There are berets and berets
You inform sternly
I own four of them
All black
With different rim sizes
That beret
In the profile picture
That you admire
So deeply
Is an extension
Of me
A Basque beret
From France
I retire
Chastised
Those hooded eyes
Ever smiling
That never hinted
At the abyss
Of pain
Those feisty emails
That never let on
That the end was
A whisper away
The profile picture
Still leers
Under
The rakish black beret
Digital eternity
Longer and stronger
Than bodily
Death
We stand
At the terminus
Of desolation
Watching
Goldsmiths of words
Depart
Marathi poet dead
Scream the headlines
In every language
If ever we meet
In the Facebook
Beyond
Time and space
(And I'm sure we will)
Once again
I shall ask
Why do you wear berets?
Kankana Basu is a Mumbai-based writer and author of Vinegar Sunday and Cappuccino Dusk.
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