A pagan will search for antiparticles
after a collective wrong:
some tantric will throw up the smoke rings
before the poean starts.
Come, stand beside me,
sadness is going to find me again

on the oak tree. A hairy spirit climbs up
to give a call of a touch wood for a voyager.
The viscera has been packed for the
final verdict of a forensic lab.
Now I have nowhere to go
between myself and truth.

It might not end, the poor conversation
between life and death.
The eyemask saves the guilt of sleepless
nights at old punctuations. Makes
the words ferocious for the lamenting cause.
From tree to tree the fireflies swing.

Satish Verma