Elegy Of Another Sort Poem by Jay Kasturi

Thus she was taken away from me,
snatched in ultimate violation,
under a white cotton sheet.
Taken away the years, the moon,
the words that danced between us
and all that is scrubbed and shined.
Human condition, my mother used to say;
Sunt lacrimae rerum – who, Virgil?
Ovid or Catallus? Or some old shadow on the wall
only to brighten a dark meditation.
For me, a long day and eyes
as parched as the desert fissures.

(2001)