Marijuana murdered him Poem by Meena Kandasamy

Noon
A gray rainy day—
On a road less traveled the patrol tracked down much:

Him (him is now an it, a crumpled cruel corpse for women
To beat their breasts about): the wreckage (four black wheels
That speak of despair and a mangled red car-body awash yet
Soiled and the cold apparitions of smoked glass and steel):
The crime record—

He stole at home he found no work he pimped his sis he
Mortgaged his mom he raped a girl (the myth reads so: like
A crow calling its kindred he invited the last of his friends to
Join the feast, the fest, yes the plunder between her thighs)
He stabbed his professor dad he lived on air and alcohol
And insulin and morphine—but it was the marijuana that
Murdered him as he screamed at the vengeful rain that
Teased away his nirvana, the excuse of an existence. . .

No pair of exacting eyes to see the trees drive into a rage into
His car that once swallowed whole black roads but for the
God on his dashboard temple who had since returned to
Formlessness, to a hundred and eight tiny crystals that held
Psychedelic rainbows that outshone all the trapped sun. . .