Death Of An Aunt Poem by indira babbellapati

She attracted fire
Like a piece of dry twig
Otherwise, it’s a routine act of cooking
In the ordinariness of a day
Lurked the fatal fire
Waiting for long years
To be ignited to caress her body
By and by embrace her in its fiery passion
Striking her right at the origin of life
As a child I was always surprised
How she could be my aunt—
Gruff voice like the opening of
A corrugated iron gate
Contracted muscles
Skin dry enough to attract fire(!)
Whenever we visited her
She always cooked at the same stove
In a kitchen that later turned into her last resting place
Wonder if her legs could ever open to welcome his seed
Childless, she left behind a husband
Who nursed her death on his paralytic hand
Into his own death

04feb2011
22.12hrs