Memory

by Jagannath Rao Adukuri

It is now four in a late dark time
For the memory of a girl who died
Clutching a cloth bundle, flashing
A child's eyes that had gone blank
From a body defiled anonymously
By men with greedy body-hunger .

On the rail track her cloth bundle
Was left with a memory of cousin
A cousin who had often felt a body
Protruding from a bundle of rags
As many hard bones, some flesh.

When body is defiled anonymously
The fire gets put out from the eyes
Embers of a body burning that will
Quickly die out, the ash collected
In a bundle, left on a dry river bed.
The cousin will now collect the fire
From the gray ashes, fill it silently
In the deeper folds of his own cloth
That will burn anonymously with it.

Body burned all night with no mind
That was found missing from its hole
Good that way since they could save
Fire wood, so expensive these days.