Buried 17 August, 1990.


We interred her on a foetid day;


Through the late night-vigil she lay


Death-cold, on a cenotaph of ice.





A bandage bound here jaw in place,


imprisoning a smile on the numbed face


left bare for mourners to recognize.





A creeping cancer had shrunk her head


into a skull, her plump body dessicated


into the rigid skeleton we carried.





The insubstantial bier imposed no strain


On her pall-bearers. She had already borne all pain


For three excruciating years.





How often must she have cursed


that impostor-seed she was doomed to nurse


Into an unfilial murderer.





The raw grave we scraped in a narrow divide


Between terrazoed plinths on either side.


Even in death, she lies deprived


Of space, as in life she was time denied.








[Unpublished.]