Questions Left Unanswered Poem by Shirani Rajapakse

A head in the drain, he tried to
understand why. They took him in for

questioning, dragging him out of the house.
A rude awakening. Fifteen years of

sharing life
but can you really know

someone? He thought he did until they told
him about the head, bloodied and severed

from the impact lying in the drain
and the many lives lost on the street. She

stopped the rush hour traffic
with her swift movements. Nothing

remained except pieces of lives swimming
on the street and soaking into the earth

to disappear the next day. The numbers
could only be imagined. The hole

in the ground,
smoke on the air and the smell

of burning, burning. He sits in the front
room of the house they once

shared unable to go inside as the memories
have shattered into tiny fragments.

They lie scattered across the floor
like the flowers of the Sepalika tree in the early

morning dew. He wonders at it all
trying to understand while in the jungles far

away someone
else is groomed to take her place.