HALF-CLOSED LIDS

This nothingness was overwhelming. 
When words fail to tell the facts, 
only silence talks. 

That brutal interrogation of self 
to undo the decline, like a 
a viper in your home. 

The mortgaged glow of stoned infant 
in the exiled land, brings 
the exodus of shrunken legs. 

A shadow survives on the debris 
of frozen voices, 
sluicing through the cries. 

Open the stitches of night. 
Death was skirting the prison. 
No ropes. No ropes.

Satish Verma