Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013
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c. 800 / India

Topography

Scarlet betel-nut juice
spattered about,
aloe paste
dashed here and there
in yellow streaks.
Richer stains—
impressions
of sandalwood oil,
red footprints
from the rouge on her feet.
Petals that
clung to her hair
have dropped in the
scattered folds—
every position
a woman took pleasure from
is told on these bed sheets.

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Published In
Eros
About the Text

Amaru, from the Amarusataka. The poem is composed of one hundred stanzas describing the various phases of a woman's life and love.

To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.
—Emma Goldman, 1917
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Lewis H. Lapham is Editor of Lapham's Quarterly. He also serves as editor emeritus and national correspondent for Harper's magazine.
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