N. Anjana
The shadows bad parents cast
are long and dark;
Like oil slick spreading
From the ruins of a ship -
The hand that rocks the cradle
Breaks the child and
twitches smiling puppets
To entertain strangers.
They drink their children in
Consume them and leave
An empty husk, a vibrant mask
A shrunken child in an adult mannequin
Trying to bear a body too big a
world too empty
Where do they go
These broken souls; these
drowning survivors?
Their hearts are graveyards
Filled with dreams
Their past a cemetery
where
the dead never rest easy