It was inheritance of pain. I should
have known. Incontinent, she was scared
to hug me: the child, after the rape. Shepherding
the lacerations: petrified, a body of lad

floating in a sewage tank; a short circuit in
an incubator, row of infants, life snuffed out in flames;
of being. I want to know ontology, need a
spinal surgery; somebody wants to abort a fetus,

because of mistaken identity, an alien egg
was implanted; racing time, bitter and corrosive,
it happned for the first time; karma, you say.
I don’t agree, you need camel’s milk to clear

your thoughts, like clenched fist against the
darkness; the little child, lad, infants, mortality after
a wrong calculation; the test tubes and petri-dishes,
need despoiling while the soul screams in a

cage; I am ready to jump out of the window,
stories down on the legends, unburdened!

Satish Verma