THIS DAY

It was inheritance of pain. I should 
have known. Incontinent, she was scared 
to hug me: the child, after the rape. Shepherding 
the lacerations: petrified, a body of lad 

floating in a sewage tank; a short circuit in 
an incubator, row of infants, life snuffed out in flames; 
of being. I want to know ontology, need a 
spinal surgery; somebody wants to abort a fetus, 

because of mistaken identity, an alien egg 
was implanted; racing time, bitter and corrosive, 
it happned for the first time; karma, you say. 
I don’t agree, you need camel’s milk to clear 

your thoughts, like clenched fist against the 
darkness; the little child, lad, infants, mortality after 
a wrong calculation; the test tubes and petri-dishes, 
need despoiling while the soul screams in a 

cage; I am ready to jump out of the window, 
stories down on the legends, unburdened!

Satish Verma