Sin Collector, by Rajani Radhakrishnan

Still Life With Five Bottles, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands). 1884.

Sin Collector

Collecting sins in old bottles, the days reach out and drop them 
in like pebbles, still smelling of fond river beds. Yesterday, it was 

the temptation of an improbable love, too big to fit into that 
slim hipped flask, but sin is pliable, twists and changes as it is 

gathered, as we change its name, change its colour, make it 
bearable in the morning. When all those hours, all those words, 

all that feel of skin on skin has been corked, when the bottles fill 
the shelves and rooms and toss and turn on the breasts of the 

tides, when everything has been cleansed and bathed and the rain 
never stops falling, tell me then, when did love become a mistake.

Rajani Radhakrishnan

Rajani Radhakrishnan: "I am from Bangalore, India and post my work on thotpurge.wordpress.com. Some of my poems have recently been featured in The Calamus Journal, Quiet Letter, Visual Verse and Parentheses Journal."