The Deed

Dida packed a brass comb
and the deed of a house
she would visit again and again -
only in her nightmarish dreams.

Platform walls were splattered
with fresh red signatures of delay.
The train was late because the
conductor's throat was slit.

Clock hands were frozen at fifteen past twelve
She stacked herself in a compartment
with three bodies and sacks of rice.

She was busy counting the flies,
one crawled into a boy's eye,
seven clung to the huge belly of a woman.
The limbs of an old man were twitching,
shooing them away.

The iron wheels shrieked one last time
before the land parted ways,
and a girl in ripped banners was shoved in,
her knees black with crusted blood.

Outside, the station dogs howled.
Inside, time had been murdered.

Comb's teeth dug in the palm, mapping.
The rice sacks leaked grain by grain
like a funeral procession.
The DEED was done.