Did you taste the ejecta 
after a sacred ritual of exploding 
a makeshift bomb in a crowded market? 

I am worried. 
I am becoming death, curling backward. 
The wood spirits have started a fire dance. 

The healing, yes, it comes from the blood 
of steel, they claim, the blackness of a hole 
has a purity. 

Hunger starts a riot of lewdness in the 
ribs of an empire. A skull on the hill 
betrays a slaughter of young boys. 

The makers of AK-47 were repenting, 
for the brutal aura. I have started 
telling lies. 


Satish Verma