How sad you had been
without wholeness for the,
price of having broken shoulders?
The people were shedding their skins
to wear new masks.
I was haunted in my sleep.
Sun was not rising.

House to house from face to face,
death makes a pause.
Time sits for a while, when
we mourn in silence.
A scream halts in our throats.
In the courtyard a pungent smell spreads.
Atrophied limbs tremble.

The elegance foresakes the human touch.
The river dries up,
sucked in by laments of earth.
The unfolding of wounds
festers on cheeks.
Lips sluicing the grief,
spill benediction!

Satish Verma