The India Series #7 - Kankana Basu's "Remembering Dilip"

Kankana Basu's poem "Remembering Dilip":

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 plate

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 we ever meet

In the Facebook

Beyond

Time and space

(And I'm sure we will)

One again

I shall ask

Why do you wear berets?