“When a woman, having placed one of her feet on the foot of her lover, and the other on one of his thighs, passes one of her arms round his back, and the other on his shoulders, makes slightly the sounds of singing and cooing, and wishes, as it were, to climb up him in order to have a kiss, it is called an embrace like the ‘climbing of a tree.’” —from The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, tr. by Sir Richard Burton
Climbing of a Tree
Once, half way up your thigh,
my calf twisted around yours
while my hands clasped behind your ears
like the tender tendril ends
of wisteria, leaves still
furled together.
Now I am chopping these down
whole woody coils fall
each time I stop to cover my face
and cry. I feel them,
lying heavily on the ground
and dragging as I walk.
I smell them, living green,
and they coat my hands, sticky sweet.
by A. Anupama
from NC Magazine, Poetry,
Vol. VI, No. 6, June 2015