Vindhya Vespers


Because I never call the living, only
the dead respond.  My years
escape me.  But he, he never goes away.

Ouija fingers trace my hands
as wet eyes cry for him, his murder--
shot while in the line of triad fire.

The modern India he said I'd hate--
death and poverty and still practiced sati,
women proving themselves worthy.

He never asked me to light a match 
to a funeral pyre.  Smoke billows, hovers
like dark set clouds before the monsoon storm.

My silk sari starched, a bleached bone.
Flame red toes flicker, ashes gray
the granite of our gravestone.


Kathleen A. Kelly



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