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This poem is taken from PN Review 141, Volume 28 Number 1, September - October 2001.

Five Poems Sujata Bhatt

Self-Portrait with Two Flowers in the Left Hand

Now that I am truly ripe
with child - I don't have the strength
to paint myself naked before a mirror.

If I could I would go
            to Paris right now -

From my eyes, my swollen eyelids,
you can tell how heavy I must be,
          how lethargic -

I give you colours of crockery.

I wear a sleepy blue:
      blue of a ceramic milk jug -

Even the sky looks milky today.

Two flowers because
            of the second heart
beating within me.
...


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