TIME TO ANSWER *

This wake, I owed it to you, my defining moment: 
for the raw melding, of life imprisonement 
and death behind the bars. The sin had 

seeped slowly in the foundations. A blurred view 
of the caravan passing on the shifting sand 
of quarter-century; the devastation had turned 

black in smug oasis, the victim will not 
become virgin again. Blind dead will monitor 
the course of grievers. On to her tongue 

I leave the endless stars and you will forget 
the bull-dosed windows and weeping walls 
of incaracerated house where the daily meals 

were sex and rape; the strange shadows 
of crime and pardon are breaking now 
in blue sky after the defeating moon. 



• After hearing the verdict on Josef Fritzl on 19th March 09

Satish Verma