Petha

You’re not from these parts.

You lack the pedigree

that politesse determines.

Despite your abundance

you’re made negligible

by our intolerance of translucence.

Those who love you

are a different breed.

What you are is a scandal:

the corpse of some chalkumro

turned anaemic and crystalline

as a princess’s breast

and imbued with rose-water.

The middle class ignores you

and would be shocked

by how you burst in the mouth and dissolve

immediately like a thunderclap.