Her tender skin sprouts
green shoots
a wreath,
at the foot of tree
she was buried.

On the trunk
her face appeared, a
morphed stump.

The bark, her coffin
split, where demons clawed.

A number, worms out
indelible scars, 452.

Frozen chambers of mortuary
await the next,
a child, a girl, a dalit, a musalman.
A cattle herder.
Or, the silent you, you and you.

 

To the 8 year old Kathua girl, durgged, raped and murdered.