Mercy Poem by Eila Mahima Jaipaul

Once, I heard the cry
of someone suffering: a voice
that seemed to listen to itself.
Like a bell pealing
insidious, solemn, obsessive...
with no way to tell the echo
from the stroke.

I saw the shudder of longing,
incandescent with trapped breath.

Here, the light makes dreams impossible.
Here the suicides are reborn as crows,
and camp at the tree line to, , warn of fog.

Once,
I heard the cry of someone suffering.