Was it sacrilege to reenter the bones of knuckles
thinking of your primrose, a backlash of twigs
in garden of homeless birds, a high-profile
sweep starting a mad rush of blue winds
in the confused landscape of life?

my hills are strewn with bones of eaten, half-cooked
lines of defence, the diplomacy not working to mimic
peace; dead words grip my truths; must you
kill the surgeon who has severed the wrist
of a thief.

I am falling unbidden on Pole Star, the terror
on the wings of flying swans, a child sits
on a chair with enormous head shaking involuntarily
and the cyclone breaking on the dumb noddings
of failing light.

Satish Verma