Mercy Killing
by Ravi Menon

    That sandstone home of aeonian repose
    sheds dirty, green tears every monsoon.

    Its curves turn with the street,
    walls stretched to occupy a uneasy vacuum:
    of life held within, of the family of
    four -- who laughed, cried inside fourscore walls,
    of four lives which moved beyond the street.

    Closure is an accessory of the times.
    The ending. With no time to re-collect:

    like remembering they were home only yesterday,
    like watching wrinkles demolished with distemper and lime,
    or engraved doors secured for the last time,

    divorced from their writhing locks on this day,
    when the old beauty awaits
    the bulldozer?s devastating caress.






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