Coming Home Years After
By Gopikrishnan Kottoor
The grasshoppers look up from the low hedge
With their glass shield gladiator faces,
Then return
delicately treading the green stemmed stalks
As if to tell their
great grass king
About strange new arrival.
Light colored butterflies with sliced bread wings
Emerge victorious over the touch-me-nots.
Memories burst cashew nuts in childhood’s fire,
Cindered with father’s frozen lips
And mother’s
dripping blood.
Over the hollow
of chimney-cold darkness,
Smoke-clouds knit in fine myrtle
lace
A red Shroud of Turin.
Copyright © by the owner.
