Necropsy

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.

 

mistress of dark nights

I cultivate you
O Moon,
seeding ribbons of light

shredded memories

one more sliver
one last
each night
from the faint glimmer
like a whisper
to a crescent
to an incandescent
disk of dark love.
From a crescent
to a glowing halo
you show off
O Moon
like a mistress

of dark Saturday nights.