Death Poem by Vinita Agrawal

Death


On this,
the longest night of the year,
the earth is sunk in its never ending shadow.

I clear the bed
of the debris of my body.
Make space for the long night.

The shimmering leaves outside the window
pass on strokes of breeze
rustle against my gaunt life shrinking in the marrows.

Darkness shall pass
like a black thread through the eye of a steel needle.
My eyes' sclera.

Or like a mudslide
through the dusk of nipples
prolonging the tease of touch buried in June.

I have looked at death for too long.
Charred it with unending solstices.
Now nothing remains that won't pass the test of orbits.

Equator, hemispheres - and the one and only sun,
wandering between the two like a candle incising the dark
When death comes it shall only light up ashes, long gone cold.
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