Cliché
I’m your favourite cliché.
Go ahead –
paint a red dot on my forehead,
push it like a button,
wrap me in a sari,
round and round I go.
Make sure it’s
– bright silky gaudy sparkly –
all of the above.
Picture me in your kitchen, barefoot
cooking butter chicken, vindaloo, naan bread
(it’s just naan, you fool!)
and chai tea
(it’s just chai, you fool!).
I’m your favourite cliché.
Sliced up
like a fat guava,
pink flesh exposed,
oozing sex,
mysticism,
with hennaed hands and bangled wrists,
an exotic charlatan spinning tales,
a many-armed brown goddess,
arranged in marriage
and rearranged by you.
We Are Buffet
Yes, I’m sure –
there is no allure.
You’re as sweet
as honeydew,
but I’m spicy,
like a vindaloo.
You linger
on tongue and sticky finger,
teasing taste buds
and unassuming cocks.
A delicious,
sexy fox.
I burn
mouths that churn
slurs to remind me
that I’m a foreigner
skirting the margins,
forever an outsider.
