What Was Read From the Face

Poetry
Kalathara Gopan 
(Translated from the Malayalam original 'Mukhathu Ninnum Vaayichathu' by Jose Varghese)
​​

No one would pay
any attention
to the face of a man
who committed suicide.
 
His friends would move away
and weep in a corner,
unable to muster the courage
to even have a look at him.
 
Those who came just to
keep up appearances would
peep through the busy crowd
to see if there's scope
for some flesh that excites
as his wife wails,
unaware that her sari
is often in disarray.
 
Someone would inform
his father that it's time
for the cremation, even as
the latter busies himself
making a cricket bat from
the stem of a coconut frond,
or a toy windmill with its leaf,
just the way he did it when
his son was a small child.
 
His mother, even as she
cries loudly, would
sense the contentment
of breastfeeding him.
 
In the end, some would
put together what's seen
and heard, and share it,
posing as philosophers.
 
His old love would
quickly separate his kisses
from her husband's
and just have
a passing glance
towards him.
 
But
someone might read
from his face
that last moment
when he expressed
his lust for life.
 
Then, just like
someone with his
bladder full would run
for a pee, he would
feel he couldn't hold suicide
within him anymore.

​Born in 1972 at Kalathara, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Kalathara Gopan started writing poems in the nineties. He has three poetry collections to his credit - `Athu ningalanu’ (It's You), ` Chirakilolippicha pena’ (The Pen Hidden In Wings,) and 'Parannu ninnu meen pidikkunnava' (Those Ones Catching Fish While Floating In The Air). Some of his poems are already translated to English.

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