142nd Weekly Poetry Contest winner: Waiting For The Shoots From The Shroud
by FABIYAS M V
She also dies to be reborn in hallucination. Her spouse’s corpse is wrapped in a white dhoti. She makes everything safe within the walls, slamming the windows and doors. Bacteria perform the post-funeral rites before the burial. A smoldering Frankincense gulps down the fetid smell. She’s one among the multitude who can’t see *Mangalyaan landing on the lap of Mars. No one can alter the earth’s flat shape in her mind. Her peace feeds on the scraps that a pretentious priest drops. Her lips rain mantras, yet shoots of life don’t sprout from the shroud. She waits within a circle of illusion. There’s a meaning in meaningless waiting. *Mangalyaan – India’s first Mars mission News clips from Malayalam dailies in Kerala, dated 6th July, 2017, featuring a lady, who keeps her husband’s dead body, wrapped in cloth, without burying, with the superstitious belief that the corpse will get life again, inspired me to pen this poem.