This wake, I owed it to you, my defining moment:
for the raw melding, of life imprisonement
and death behind the bars. The sin had

seeped slowly in the foundations. A blurred view
of the caravan passing on the shifting sand
of quarter-century; the devastation had turned

black in smug oasis, the victim will not
become virgin again. Blind dead will monitor
the course of grievers. On to her tongue

I leave the endless stars and you will forget
the bull-dosed windows and weeping walls
of incaracerated house where the daily meals

were sex and rape; the strange shadows
of crime and pardon are breaking now
in blue sky after the defeating moon.


• After hearing the verdict on Josef Fritzl on 19th March 09

Satish Verma