A Hunchback Boy From Manayur

There’s a miniature volcano
on his back
with mortifying eruption.
‘Beauty is
in mind’, his mom intones.
But nobody
recognizes. His classmates
‘honor’ him
with some funny sobriquets.

It resembles a cactus. He can’t
eschew its
thorns. He withdraws. Solitude
is a shelter.

It’s like a gas-producing
cassava; his
mind bloats with thoughts
of inferiority.

Whistles and whoops from
the playground
pain him no more. Recurrence
blunts sorrow’s talon.

He falls down through
a siesta.
Posthumous pity is a wreath.

First appeared in The Literary Hatchet (issue #19)

Fondly remembering my old schoolmate, who died falling down from a 'thinna' (a raised seat constructed with stones in the veranda)