before

Before I laughed with him

          nightly,

          the slow waves beating

          on his wide shores

          and the palmyra

          bringing forth heron-like flowers

          near the waters,

my eyes were like the lotus

my arms had the grace of the bamboo

my forehead was mistaken for the moon.

          But now

[Maturai Eruttalan Centamputan 'What She Said/Kur 226' from The Interior Landscape: Classical Tamil Love Poems; trans. from the Tamil by A.K. Ramanujan]