Mad Women of Tenkasi
3
Amani of Tenkasi became a myth when she
behaved like she owned her body.
One morning women doing their laundry
by the river look up to see her wedding necklace
with its sacred talismans
arc through the air and into the stream.
Amani watches the current swallow
the snake of thread, as if accepting
her divorce.
Rivers accept
any offering indifferently.
She adjusts her sari around her shoulders,
clambers up the mossy bank,
then heads home.
