While she passed over the woods, her hair flying
in the winds of the cloud-lit Pushpak,
she saw a bleeding plough on a hill,
vultures boring into the wood-born dead,
navels strewn like clawed wallets,
mousetraps laid across by the mice,
the Gujjars gathered as lifeless flags,
searing sunflowers, pulped fetuses,
flakes of paint called countries,
smoke hovering over slippers lost,
a riot of rights, god-eating gods,
wide-eyed saints, squint-eyed skippers,
temples torn, cathedrals crushed, lullabies lashed,
windows brimming with bored widows,
vestibules flecked with dried tulsi,
a gnashed neck, a hacked hand, a panting leg…
She looked
while hurling a hail of gewgaws as she headed
to the other Lanka where combustion is cheap
and apes are known for flinging rings!
