FIREFLIES

A pagan will search for antiparticles 
after a collective wrong: 
some tantric will throw up the smoke rings 
before the poean starts. 
Come, stand beside me, 
sadness is going to find me again 

on the oak tree. A hairy spirit climbs up 
to give a call of a touch wood for a voyager. 
The viscera has been packed for the 
final verdict of a forensic lab. 
Now I have nowhere to go 
between myself and truth. 

It might not end, the poor conversation 
between life and death. 
The eyemask saves the guilt of sleepless 
nights at old punctuations. Makes 
the words ferocious for the lamenting cause. 
From tree to tree the fireflies swing.

Satish Verma