God’s Forgotten Nickname (Sule Sankavva)

Sule Sankavva

Who says sluts don’t have choices?

We can’t choose our clients–
and believe me, I’ve seen them all,
fried, boiled, scrambled, poached, 
sunny side up, 
runny side down–

                 but we can choose our gods.

I chose mine
because he came without a name

and on some nights
without a body.

I chose him
because he waited his turn,

didn’t ask me to hurry,
or clean up,
didn’t complain about the line
of shuffling men at my door.

When colleagues badger me for details
I turn sassy. I say,

     Mahadevi’s god unhoused her, 
     Jana’s deloused her,
     Andal’s aroused her, 
     Avvaiyar’s doused her.
     Some like them fried, 
     others like them boiled
     some like them immaculate, 
     I like my gods soiled.

But they aren’t impressed.

He must have a USP, they claim.
A sun sign, an address.
For god’s sake, a name.
I grow quiet.

He has a garland of fancy titles, I say,
but they don’t quite work for me.

Perhaps he is the world’s greatest lover
but how does that matter
when planets shrivel and char
in the flaming cemetery
of his gaze?

And maybe he birthed
the three worlds
beneath the delirious hurricane
of his feet, but how does that count
if he’s too bloody innocent
to read the lurch and plummet
of a contrarian
heart, the fine print
of my breath?

And yet,
he is mine, friends,
for a simple reason.

For he rushes to my side
when I utter
his darkest,
most intimate,
most forgotten,
jasmine-scented
nickname,
the one coveted by every god there is:

                  My God Without Shame.

*Sule Sankavva, twelfth century mystic and sex-worker, who wrote poetry addressed to Nirlajjeswhara (God Without Shame).