Hallucinations Of Floating Corpses Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

We had no words, on seeing
the confluence of the holy Ganges
and the overflowing Yamuna at Alahabad.
The priests pestered us
to do rites for our parents dead.
Two floating corpses soon we found
and thoughts of life brief haunted our minds.
When the boatman rowed us up
I had hallucinations
and the vast surface of the rivers
seemed to be full of bodies around.
We came home but those ‘inert things’
were at the crest of our thoughts.